BANCROFT 
LIBRARY 

<> 

THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 


IN  RE  THAT  AGGRESSIVE 
SLAVOCRACY 


BY 
CHAUNCEY  SAMUEL  BOUCHER,  Ph.  D. 

PROFESSOR  OF  AMERICAN  HISTORY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  TEXAS 

AUSTIN 

1921 


Reprinted  from  the  MISSISSIPPI 
VALLEY  HISTORICAL  REVIEW 
Vol.  VIII,  Nos.  1-2,  1921 


Bancroft  Library 


IN  RE  THAT  AGGRESSIVE  SLAVOCEACY1 

From  most  of  the  historical  works  covering  the  ante-bellum 
period  one  gains  the  impression  that  the  dominant  factor, 
controlling  the  course  of  events,  is  found  in  a  powerful,  united, 
well-organized,  aggressive  slavocracy.  Some  of  the  more  prom- 
inent details  of  the  picture  are  as  follows:  Shortly  after  the 
war  of  1812  this  aggressive  slave  power  began  to  sense  its 
strength  and  future  possibilities.  As  its  designs  were  unfolded 
and  became  generally  known,  the  first  successful  effort  to  check 
its  growing  power  came  in  1820  with  the  Missouri  compromise. 
This  proved  but  a  temporary  setback,  however,  for  the  south 
then  looked  toward  Texas,  with  the  result  that  in  1836  Texas 
was  asking  for  admission  as  a  slave  state.  In  the  meantime,  the 
south  had  forced  upon  the  union  an  acceptance  of  its  tariff 
views  in  1833.  Though  the  antislavery  forces  now  began  to 
mobilize  for  a  general  crusade  against  the  aggressions  of  the 
slaveholders  and  did  succeed  in  delaying  Texan  annexation  for 
a  decade,  that  aggressive  southern  group  ultimately  had  its 
way  and  added  another  slave  state.  Not  content  with  the  annex- 
ation of  this  Texan  domain,  from  which  five  slave  states  might 
ultimately  be  made,  the  south  pushed  the  country  into  the  war 
with  Mexico  to  gain  still  more  territory  for  the  expansion  of 
its  institution  and  more  votes  in  congress  to  insure  its  domi- 
nation. At  the  same  time  this  selfish  section,  willing  to  pro- 
mote only  its  own  interests,  managed  affairs  so  that  our  just 
claim  to  much  of  the  Oregon  territory  was  forfeited,  simply 
because  if  it  had  been  pressed  the  result  would  have  been  the 
addition  of  more  free  states.  When  the  Wilmot  proviso  was 
offered  as  a  stop  to  the  program  of  southern  aggression,  the 
south  succeeded  in  defeating  it  and  secured  the  lion's  share 
in  the  compromise  settlement  of  1850.  The  next  and  most 
unpardonable  work  of  this  aggressive  slavocracy  was  the  Kan- 

i  This  paper  was  given  in  part  as  the  presidential  address  at  the  fourteenth 
annual  meeting  of  the  Mississippi  valley  historical  association  at  Madison,  Wis- 
consin, on  April  14,  1921. 


14  Chauncey  S.  Boucher  M.V.H.R. 

sas-Nebraska  bill  of  1854,  with  the  repeal  of  the  compromise  of 
1820,  which  had  been  planned  for  a  decade.  This  was  soon 
followed  by  the  Dred  Scott  decision,  designed  to  make  slavery 
in  all  the  territories  absolutely  secure.  The  next  step  was  to 
be,  through  another  such  decision,  a  forced  legalization  of  slav- 
ery in  all  of  the  then  free  states. 

Through  it  all  the  oligarchy  of  slaveholders  in  the  south  had 
become  drunk  with  power  and  their  hopes  and  ambitions  knew 
no  bounds.  Controlling  the  situation  as  the  planters  did  in 
the  south,  including  the  border  states,  and  united  on  all  serious 
questions  of  policy  where  the  "peculiar  institution "  was  in- 
volved, in  spite  of  the  appearance  of  party  division  on  smaller 
matters,  they  would  be  able  to  control  the  policy  of  the  country ; 
for  a  compact  minority,  with  the  advantages  of  great  wealth 
and  leisure  to  devote  to  public  affairs,  could  govern  in  any 
country.  With  the  successes  enumerated  above  to  their  credit, 
and  their  control  of  the  presidency,  which  was  almost  continuous 
beginning  with  1844,  and  control  of  the  house,  the  senate,  and 
the  supreme  court  either  established  or  within  reach,  they  de- 
veloped imperialistic  plans  to  bring  Cuba,  Mexico,  and  Central 
America  under  their  system  of  control.  The  resources  and 
opportunities  of  the  section  were  to  be  fully  developed  through 
a  series  of  southern  commercial  conventions  which  would  launch 
successful  propaganda  for  the  conservation  of  cotton  soils,  the 
perfecting  of  the  efficiency  of  labor  units,  the  promotion  of 
manufacturing  establishments  in  the  south,  the  building  of  a 
railroad  to  the  Pacific  along  a  southern  route,  the  reopening 
of  the  African  slave  trade  to  furnish  the  additional  labor  needed, 
and  the  establishment  of  steamship  lines  from  southern  ports 
to  Europe.  Thus  the  south  would  control  the  nation,  and  through 
King  Cotton  it  could  control  the  destinies  of  the  rest  of  the 
world;  and  the  corner  stone  of  its  ideal  scheme  of  civilization 
was  to  be  slavery.  It  would  have  a  perfect  society  in  which 
every  man  should  have  a  place — the  best  place  for  which  he 
was  fitted  —  and  should  keep  it.2 

This  is  the  picture,  not  thus  drawn  in  its  entirety  in  any 

2  Numerous  references  could  be  given  to  general  histories,  biographies,  and 
special  works  to  show  how  generally  accepted  is  this  view.  The  purpose  of 
this  paper  is  not  to  contradict  any  one  author,  however,  but  to  examine  the  sound- 
ness of  view  of  a  whole  group. 


VOL  vin,  NOS.  1-2        Tltiat  Aggressive  Slavocracy  15 

one  account,  but  large  sections  of  it  appear  in  most  accounts.  It 
is  the  purpose  of  this  monograph  to  examine  the  picture  in 
detail  and  to  see  whether  it  is  true  to  facts.  Was  the  south 
united  throughout  the  ante-bellum  period  in  its  position  on  big 
questions  of  policy  and  action!  Was  it  really  united  on  any 
single  big  issue  !  Was  it  normally  aggressive,  or  was  it  on  the 
defensive  ! 

Those  historians  who  see  in  the  ante-bellum  south  only  an 
aggressive  slavocracy  admit  that  a  primary  requisite  for  that 
section  to  have  been  on  the  aggressive  would  seem  to  have 
been  unity  of  purpose  and  action.  The  well-known  fact  that 
there  were  two  thriving  political  parties  in  the  south  in  the 
decade  1840-1850,  when  the  south  is  supposed  to  have  got  we'll 
started  on  its  aggressive  program,  is  dismissed  with  the  simple 
statement  that  though  each  party  might  twit  the  other  on  occa- 
sion with  being  disloyal  to  slavery,  in  any  great  crisis  they 
were  almost  certain  to  unite.  True,  this  is  the  logic  which  is 
demanded  by  the  acceptance  of  the  doctrine  of  an  aggressive 
slavocracy.  But,  is  it  true  to  facts! 

One  does  not  read  very  far  in  newspaper  files  or  correspond- 
ence collections  of  the  ante-bellum  period  in  the  south  before  one 
encounters  frequent  complaints  and  laments,  registered  in  all 
seriousness,  that  such  a  situation  —  unity  of  purpose  and  action 
politically  —  did  not  exist.  Party  divisions  were  not  mere  sur- 
face affairs ;  party  ties  did  not  hang  loosely,  and  party  allegiance 
was  not  renounced  lightly.  Indeed,  the  true  state  of  affairs 
seems  to  have  been  that  party  divisions  cut  deeply  through  the 
body  politic;  party  ties  were  strong,  and  party  allegiance  was 
renounced  only  under  most  abnormal  and  forceful  circumstan- 
ces. Personal  political  feuds  between  individuals  and  groups 
were  as  bitter  and  persistent  as  in  any  other  section  of  the 
union.  If  he  who  is  obsessed  with  the  idea  of  a  united  and 
aggressive  slavocracy  reads  newspaper  and  correspondence  ma- 
terial, the  frequency  with  which  such  complaints  as  the  follow- 
ing are  repeated  should  make  him  pause :  the  south  is  not  united ; 
apparently  it  cannot  be  united  —  certainly  not  for  defense  in 
advance  of  an  anticipated  attack,  but  perhaps  it  may  be  united 
after  an  "overt  act"  has  been  committed;  (such  an  "overt  act," 
however,  capable  of  uniting  the  south,  did  not  come  prior  to 
I860;)  there  are  few  southern  statesmen  with  big  views  and 


16  Chauncey  8.  Boucher  M- v- H- R- 

disinterested  motives ;  there  are  too  many  selfish,  spoils-seeking 
politicians,  interested  only  in,  serving  personal  ends;  party 
ties  are  stronger  than  sectional  ties ;  spoilsmen  are  ever  ready 
to  knife  each  other  or  honest  men  interested  in  principles ;  the 
majority  of  the  party  rank  and  file  are  strongly  inclined  to 
temporize  with  principles  and  to  postpone  ultimately  inevitable 
issues;  since  the  abolitionists  are  so  insistent  and  such  persist- 
ent fighters,  and  since  the  south  is  not  united  and  not  aggressive, 
the  politicians  see  that  they  have  more  to  gain  and  less  to 
lose  by  giving  in  to  the  former  at  the  expense  of  the  latter; 
the  northern  enemies  of  the  south  have  many  shrewd  states- 
men enlisted  in  their  ranks  who  will  not  commit  the  blunder  of 
taking  such  an  advanced  position  as  will  result  in  uniting  the 
south,  but  who  by  slow  and  careful  advances  are  succeeding 
in  deluding  the  south  and  keeping  it  distracted  until  the  time 
will  be  ripe  for  the  final  step  of  complete  abolition,  with  as- 
surance of  success;  the  safety  of  the  south  depends  less  upon 
the  patriotism  (to  the  south)  of  its  politicians,  than  upon  the 
boldness  of  its  opponents. 

In  the  following  pages  it  will  be  demonstrated  frequently 
that  southern  unity  did  not  exist.  Even  in  congress  the  south 
did  not  present  a  united  front  which  might  have  enabled  it 
to  make  demands  with  assurance  of  having  them  met ;  however, 
there  was  a  nearer  approach  to  unity  of  purpose  and  action 
among  southern  men  in  congress  than  among  their  constituents 
at  home,  the  section  over.  It  was  difficult  enough  to  get  the 
people  of  a  single  state  to  agree  upon  and  take  a  definite  stand, 
as  is  witnessed  by  the  history  of  South  Carolina  from  1828  to 
1861;  and  as  for  getting  several  states  to  agree  even  upon  an 
interpretation  of  the  situation  at  any  given  time,  to  say  nothing 
of  concerted  action,  it  seemed  to  be  utterly  hopeless,  for  it 
seemed  almost  hopeless  in  the  case  of  two  states,  neighbors  with 
apparently  identical  interests,  South  Carolina  and  Georgia. 

On  several  occasions  in  the  period  from  1840  to  1860  men 
wrote  in  private  correspondence  that  the  only  real  hope  they 
had  of  ever  getting  the  south  to  take  a  united  and  effective  stand 
in  defense  of  its  rights  lay  in  South  Carolina,  which  seemed  to 
be  the  only  state  where  there  was  enough  of  unity,  steadfast- 
ness to  principle,  and  boldness  to  cause  the  state  to  take  a 


VOL  vin,  NOS.  1-2        That  Aggressive  Slavocracy  17 

stand;  this  would  likely  result  in  an  attempt  to  coerce  South 
Carolina  which  could  not  be  concealed  from  the  people  of  the 
other  southern  states,  who  would  then,  and  then  only,  be  brought 
to  real,  effective,  united  action  for  defense  of  the  section.  On 
the  other  hand,  it  was  just  as  frequently  predicted  that  any 
movement  started  by  the  "palmetto  state "  was  sure  to  fail 
for  want  of  support  from  the  other  southern  states,  so  great 
was  their  distrust,  jealousy,  and  hatred  of  the  leadership  of 
that  state. 

The  ante-bellum  period  was  characterized,  in  South  Caro- 
lina and  in  the  south  generally,  by  waves  of  excitement.  An 
examination  of  any  one  of  these  will  reveal  the  same  general 
story :  much  talk  about  necessity  of  action  —  of  united  action ; 
but  it  never  materializes.  Always  there  are  bitter  party  feuds, 
distrust  of  leaders,  complaint  of  lack  of  proper  leadership,  et 
cetera,  ad  infinitum. 

The  story  of  the  whig  party  in  the  south  is  a  forceful  proof 
of  the  lack  of  unity.  When  the  "peculiar  institution "  was  as- 
sailed from  the  north,  of  course  the  state-rights  whigs  came 
to  its  defense.  As  it  was  early  seen  that  the  northern  whigs 
tended  to  be  more  actively  hostile  to  slavery  than  were  the 
northern  democrats,  the  southern  whigs  were  reminded  of  the 
fact  and  taunted  with  being  traitors  to  their  own  interests. 
Quite  naturally,  perhaps,  then,  as  long  as  the  alliance  between 
the  southern  and  the  northern  wings  of  the  party  was  continued, 
the  southern  whigs  were  more  moderate  in  their  defense  of 
slavery  than  were  the  southern  democrats.  Throughout  the 
struggle  in  congress  over  the  gag  resolutions  the  compact  front 
of  the  south  was  broken  again  and  again  quite  perceptibly  by  whig 
votes.  The  same  was  true  of  the  votes  in  the  house  on  the  elec- 
tion of  a  speaker  and  in  the  senate  on  the  ratification  of  appoint- 
ments made  by  the  president,  when  objection  was  raised  that 
the  man  under  consideration  was  an  antislavery  man.  Indeed, 
through  the  eight een-forties  many  southern  whigs  denounced 
the  democrats  for  eternally  dragging  forth  the  slavery  question 
to  cover  up  the  real  issue,  whatever  it  might  be,  and  to  stir  up 
agitation.  When  the  national  whig  party  became  irreparably 
split  over  the  slavery  question,  it  did  not  mean  that  from  that 
time  on  there  was  a  united  south  with  a  single  purpose  and  a 


18  Chauncey  S.  Boucher  M.V.H.E. 

single  policy.  Though  southern  whigs  agreed  to  disagree  with 
their  northern  party  brethren  they  could  not  agree  among  them- 
selves nor  with  the  southern  democrats  on  a  position  to  be  held 
against  the  common  foe;  and,  though  the  national  democratic 
party  continued  its  existence  down  to  1860,  there  was  marked 
disagreement  in  the  southern  ranks  of  that  party  as  to  policy. 

Throughout  the  ante-bellum  period  there  were  men  in  the  north 
who  were  not  ready  to  support  all  the  aggressive  measures  di- 
rected against  the  south;  these  men  were  styled  " northern  men 
with  southern  principles, "  and  were  referred  to  more  contemp- 
tuously as  "doughfaces."  There  seem  to  have  been  quite  as 
many  men  in  the  south  who  were  inclined  to  be  conservative, 
less  radical  in  demands,  and  willing  to  make  concessions ;  these 
men  were  called . " southern  traitors"  in  some  quarters.  But 
the  striking  difference  between  the  sections  in  this  respect  was 
that,  while  in  the  north  there  was  pretty  general  agreement  in 
classifying  men  as  "doughfaces,"  in  the  south  there  was  a  lack 
of  agreement  as  to  who  were  the  "traitors;"  a  man  might  be 
to  one  group  in  the  south  a  wise  and  honest  statesman,  while 
at  the  same  time  to  another  group  he  might  be  a  political  charla- 
tan and  a  traitor.  Many  men  who  were  called  traitors  by  var- 
ious compatriots  in  the  south  might  be  named.  There  was  con- 
siderable interest  in,  and  comment  upon,  the  Calhoun-Benton 
feud.  Some  referred  to  Benton  as  "Tommy  the  traitor"  and 
developed  their  meaning  at  length,  but  admitted  that  if  Benton 
could  "force  on"  his  opponents  "the  livery  of  Calhoun  and 
disunion"  he  could  "make  them  odious  enough  to  scare  children 
with."  When,  in  all  seriousness,  one  group  of  correspondents 
referred  to  certain  political  leaders  as  traitors  to  the  south  and 
to  other  leaders  as  wise  and  honest  statesmen;  when  another 
group  of  correspondents  referred  to  the  same  leaders  with 
terms  of  classification  just  reversed;  and  when  still  others 
classed  both  groups  of  leaders  as  traitors,  the  historian  must 
conclude  that  the  section  was  thoroughly  disorganized  and  that 
it  possessed  no  real  unity  of  purpose  or  action. 

It  was  the  irony  of  fate  that  the  southern  statesman  who 
saw,  perhaps  more  clearly  than  any  other,  the  necessity  of 
southern  unity  for  defense  through  the  maintenance  of  the 
"true  Republican  principles,"  and  who  strove  earnestly  to 


VOL  viii,  NOS.  1-2        That  Aggressive  Slavocracy  19 

promote  such  unity  of  action  in  support  of  basic  principles, 
was  the  very  one  who  perhaps  caused  more  division  and  bitter- 
ness of  strife  within  the  section  than  any  other  man.  No  man 
ever  had  followers  more  devoted  and  enemies  more  bitter  among 
the  "people  at  home"  than  John  C.  Calhoun. 

Instead  of  a  united,  aggressive  slavocracy,  one  finds  evidence 
at  almost  every  turn  that  the  true  picture  is  quite  the  reverse, 
and  that  keen  students  of  public  affairs  realized  full  well  that 
cross-purposes  and  disorganization  prevailed.  Again  and  again, 
throughout  the  period  from  1835  to  1860,  complaint  was  regis- 
tered that,  vainly  putting  its  trust  in  national  parties,  without 
unanimity  of  opinion  either  as  to  the  dangers  that  menaced  or 
the  remedies  to  be  applied,  with  no  distinct  issue,  no  certain  aim, 
no  wise  plan  of  statesmanship,  no  well-defined  ideas  of  what 
it  might  have  to  fear,  to  hope,  or  to  do,  the  south  was  dragged 
along,  ingloriously  enough,  by  the  fatal  delusions  of  national 
partyism,  a  source  of  profit  to  its  southern  betrayers  and  a 
spoil  and  a  mockery  to  its  northern  enemies.  Though  the  opin- 
ion was  frequently  offered  that  if  united  the  south  would  be 
invincible,  at  least  in  the  protection  of  its  rights,  it  was  almost 
as  frequently  admitted  that  it  seemed  impossible  to  get  the 
section  to  unite  even  for  self-defense,  let  alone  for  a  positive 
or  an  aggressive  program,  within  the  union.  Hence  it  was  that 
toward  the  end  of  the  period  some  sincere  believers  in  the  pres- 
ervation of  the  "Constitutional  Union "  as  the  best  policy  for 
both  sections  began  to  hope  for  secession  by  a  single  state  as 
the  only  development  which  could  bring  about  southern  unity; 
and  many  of  these  men  admitted  at  the  same  time  that  they 
feared  that  such  unity  would  last  but  a  short  time  beyond  the 
formation  of  a  southern  confederacy,  and  that  disorganization 
and  disintegration  would  soon  follow. 

When  the  historian  finds  that  some  southerners  boasted  of 
how  they  might  control  the  nation  if  they  could  but  secure  unity 
among  southern  statesmen  and  politicians,  and  that  individuals 
or  groups  urged  this  item  or  that  one  for  a  southern  program 
and  boasted  of  the  wonders  it  would  work,  is  the  historian  to 
interpret  them  literally!  In  most  of  such  instances  were  they 
not  in  the  mood  of  a  small  boy  going  down  a  dark  alley,  whistling 
as  loud  as  he  can  to  keep  up  his  courage?  Just  as  the  boy's 


20  Chauncey  S.  Boucher  M.V.H.E. 

whistling  is  so  forced  and  strained  that  he  hits  many  false  notes, 
so  the  boasting  of  southerners  gives  one  the  impression  that  it 
was  forced,  unnatural,  not  sincere,  and  hence  false  notes  were 
struck. 

When  the  south  struggled  for  power  in  national  councils,  was 
it  for  political  strength  to  be  used  aggressively?  Did  the  south 
have  a  positive  program  to  be  put  through  in  its  own  interest 
to  the  exclusion  of,  or  the  positive  injury  of,  the  other  sections  ? 
Did  not  the  south  want  political  strength  mainly  or  simply  to 
block  and  stop  the  aggressions  of  its  opponents?  Did  it  ask 
anything  more  than  to  be  let  alone  and  not  to  be  made  to  bear 
the  burden  of  legislation  injurious  to  itself  alone  !3 

The  charge  of  aggression  was  made  against  the  south  for 
the  first  time  seriously  and  rather  generally  in  the  middle  eight- 
een-thirties,  when  projects  for  Texan  independence  from  Mex- 
ico and  annexation  to  the  United  States  were  launched;  this 
time  was  also  marked  by  the  launching  of  the  aggressive  anti- 
slavery  crusade  in  the  north.  During  the  next  decade  the 
charge  was  made  with  ever-increasing  frequency  and  reached 
the  height  of  its  strength  and  popularity  at  the  time  of  the 

8  To  give  all  the  source  citations  in  correspondence  collections  and  newspaper 
files  upon  which  these  observations  are  based  would  require  unwarranted  space. 
Reference  can.  be  made  simply  in  a  general  way  to  the  Hammond  papers,  the  Cal- 
houn  papers,  The  correspondence  of  Robert  Toombs,  Alexander  H.  Stephens,  and 
Howell  Cobb,  edited  by  Ulrich  B.  Phillips  (American  historical  association,  Annual 
report,  1911,  volume  2 — Washington,  1913),  Correspondence  of  John  C.  Calhoiw, 
edited  by  J.  Franklin  Jameson  (American  historical  association,  Annual  report,  1899, 
volume  2 —  Washington,  1900),  and  files  of  southern  newspapers  of  the  ante-bellum 
period,  now  in  the  possession  of  the  University  of  Texas,  the  Alabama  state 
department  of  archives  and  history,  the  Charleston  library  society,  South  Carolina 
university,  and  the  library  of  congress.  Many  secondary  works,  such  as  Arthur 
C.  Cole,  The  whig  party  in  the  south  (Prize  essays  of  the  American  historical 
association,  1912 — Washington,  1913),  are  valuable.  Letters  especially  valuable 
for  a  picture  of  the  south  at  different  times  are  the  following:  Calhoun  from 
J.  W.  A.  Pettit,  June  18,  1847,  from  Wilson  Lumpkin,  August  27,  1847,  August 
25,  1848,  from  H.  W.  Connor,  October  6,  1847,  from  A.  Bowie,  January  19,  1848, 
and  from  Louis  T.  Wigfall,  January  4,  1849,  in  the  Calhoun  papers;  Stephens  to 
James  Thomas,  February  13,  1850,  to  J.  Henly  Smith,  January  22,  September  15,  16, 
1860,  in  Correspondence  of  Toombs,  Stephens,  and  Cobb,  184,  457,  496,  497.  Another 
volume  of  Calhoun  correspondence  is  now  being  edited  by  B.  P.  Brooks  and  C.  S. 
Boucher,  for  publication  by  the  Manuscripts  commission  of  the  American  historical 
association,  as  one  volume  of  the  Reports',  it  will  contain  about  four  hundred  letters 
written  to  Calhoun  from  all  parts  of  the  country  in  the  eighteen-forties.  Hereafter, 
in  this  monograph,  this  collection  of  correspondence,  as  yet  unpublished,  will  be 
referred  to  as  the  ' l  Calhoun  papers. '  > 


Vol.  vin,  NOS.  1-2        That  Aggressive  Slavocracy  21 

Mexican  war.  It  held  sway  in  the  north  until  1861,  has  per- 
sisted from  that  day  to  this,  and  is  repeated  in  books  published 
within  the  past  year,  1920. 

The  settlement  of  Texas  by  emigrants  from  the  south  was 
as  natural  a  development  as  any  phase  of  the  westward  move- 
ment. At  a  time  when  migration  westward  —  the  pushing 
into  new  lands  and  the  development  of  them — was  one  of  the 
most  important  and  generally  characteristic  movements  in  all 
parts  of  the  United  States,  why  was  it  not  to  be  expected  that 
the  south  would  share  in  this  common  impulse?  and,  when  it 
developed  that  the  south  did  share  the  impulse  and  acted  on  it, 
why  was  this  worthy  of  being  labeled  a  criminal  conspiracy? 

In  view  of  the  facts  that  the  culture  of  cotton  by  the  planta- 
tion system  required  larger  units  of  land  and  exhausted  the 
land  relatively  more  rapidly  than  the  northern  type  of  agri- 
culture with  varied  crops  and  smaller  units,  it  was  natural  that 
the  southern  frontier  should  lead,  as  it  did  into  Missouri  and 
Texas.  Furthermore,  at  a  time  when  the  westward  migration 
in  the  United  States  was  steadily  increasing  and  when  the  west- 
ern prairies  were  designated  as  the  Indian  country,  or  were 
closed  to  the  south  by  the  compromise  of  1820,  it  would  seem 
natural  that  the  stream  of  advance  should  have  been  diverted  to 
the  southwest.  Those  who  have  made  a  critical  study  of  the  colo- 
nization of  Texas,  however,  have  found  that  the  settlement  of 
that  state,  in  the  early  days  before  its  independence,  was  not 
promoted  by  slavery,  to  any  appreciable  extent.  A  few  slave- 
holders were  attracted  by  the  opportunity  to  secure  cheap 
lands,  but  the  early  emigration  to  Texas  was  chiefly  of  "  land- 
hungry  "  men  of  small  means,  small  farmers,  back-country  men 
of  the  Jackson-democrat  type,  and  very  few  were  owners  of 
more  than  a  very  few  slaves,  while  the  majority  were  not 
slaveholders  at  all.  Slaves  were  brought  into  Texas  in  greater 
numbers  after  independence  and  after  annexation,  but  the  ma- 
jority of  immigrants  were  still  nonslaveholders,  and  the  slaves 
constituted  only  twenty-seven  per  cent  of  the  total  population 
of  Texas  in  1850  and  only  thirty  per  cent  in  1860.  There 
seems  to  be  little,  if  any,  evidence  to  show  that  the  settlement  of 
Texas  was  due  even  in  small  part  to  the  political  ambitions  of 
the  south  to  increase  the  slaveholders'  strength  in  congress. 
When  Texas  was  ripe  for  annexation,  the  accomplishment  of 


22  Chauncey  S.  Boucher 


M.  v.  H.  E. 


this  desideratum  was  delayed  a  decade  by  the  slavery  compli- 
cation. If  there  had  not  been  a  single  slave  within  the  limits 
of  the  United  States,  the  independence  of  Texas  and  its  sub- 
sequent incorporation  into  the  union  would  likely  have  come 
about,  as  a  result  of  the  natural  course  of  the  westward  move- 
ment, but  with  this  possible  difference :  annexation  might  have 
come  ten  years  earlier  than  it  did.  Slavery,  instead  of  stimulat- 
ing the  annexation,  actually  delayed  it.4 

During  the  period  of  delay,  caused  by  the  opponents  of  slavery, 
the  south  learned  that  these  opponents  were  planning  attacks 
which  would  be  impeded  by  an  accretion  of  strength  to  those 
about  to  be  assailed;  and,  by  the  same  token,  which  prompted 
a  determination  on  the  part  of  antislavery  men  to  prevent  this 
accretion  of  strength,  southerners  saw  that  it  was  their  cue  to 
be  interested  in  it.  Then  it  was,  in  the  period  when  Texas  was 
kept  waiting  for  admission,  that  great  numbers  in  the  south 
for  the  first  time  demanded  annexation  as  necessary  for  their 
safety  in  the  national  councils.  True,  a  few,  such  as  Robert 
J.  Walker  of  Mississippi,  as  early  as  1835  urged  annexation 
because  it  might  give  the  south  six  additional  slaveholding, 
antitariff  states,  securing  to  the  south  a  checking  power  in 
the  senate  against  hostile  legislation.  But  it  was  not  until  later, 
after  Texas  had  been  held  off  for  some  time,  that  great  numbers 
in  the  south  came  to  demand  annexation  for  this  reason;  not 
until  the  aggressions  of  the  abolitionists  forced  them  to  this 
as  a  defensive  position.  And  even  this  same  Eobert  J.  Walker 
was  a  consistent  expansionist,  whether  slavery  was  involved  or 
not,  even  more  than  he  was  a  guardian  of  the  institution.5 

Further,  on  the  eve  of  the  annexation  of  Texas  the  south  was 
interested  in  adding  that  state  to  the  union  because  of  the  inter- 

*  George  P.  Garrison,  Westward  extension,  1841-1850  (The  American  nation:  a 
history,  volume  17 — New  York,  1906),  90;  James  E.  Winston,  "  Texas  annexation 
sentiment  in  Mississippi,  1835-1844,"  in  the  Southwestern  historical  quarterly, 
23:1-19;  Calhoun  from  Thomas  Scott,  April  4,  1844,  from  William  Hale,  May  18, 
1844,  from  Wilson  Shannon,  May  25,  1844,  from  Sam  E.  Thruston,  December  2, 
1844,  from  William  C.  Anderson  and  others,  November  6,  1845,  Calhoun  papers. 
The  writer  is  indebted  for  valuable  suggestions  and  information  on  the  history  of 
Texas  to  his  colleagues,  Mr.  E.  C.  Barker,  who  has  done  considerable  work  on  the 
Anglo-American  colonization  of  Texas,  and  Mr.  C.  W.  Ramsdell. 

s  Winston,  "Texas  annexation  sentiment  in  Mississippi,"  in  the  Southwestern 
historical  quarterly,  23:2;  R.  M.  T.  Hunter  to  Calhoun,  October  10,  1843,  Calhoun 
papers. 


VOL  vin,  NOS.  1-8        That  Aggressive  Slavocracy  23 

national  dangers  arising  from  English  designs  in  Texas  —  dan- 
gers, both  political  and  economic,  to  the  whole  union  —  quite  as 
much  as  it  was  interested  in  this  possible  increase  in  political 
strength  for  the  defense  of  slavery  in  the  union,  or  in  the 
avoidance  of  the  danger  of  having  as  a  neighbor  a  state  to  be  abo- 
litionized  under  English  influence.  Many  of  the  letters  in  south- 
ern correspondence  of  1844  and  1845  show  that  the  writers, 
southerners,  were  thinking  mainly  about  the  international  as- 
pect of  the  Texas  annexation  question ;  thinking  of  the  peace  and 
prosperity  of  the  nation  as  a  whole;  fearing  a  Texan  alliance 
with  Great  Britain  that  would  lead  to  diplomatic  troubles,  and 
most  likely  to  war;  fearing  the  bad  commercial  effects  on  the 
nation  as  a  whole  of  independent  Texas  allied  commercially 
with  other  nations  and  waging  commercial  warfare  upon  the 
United  States.  The  great  majority  of  these  letters  contain  no 
mention  of  more  votes  in  congress  for  slavery;  some  of  them 
show  anxiety  over  the  effect  of  emancipation  in  Texas  upon 
the  slave  states,  and  a  desire  to  block  this  further  aggressive 
move  by  Great  Britain  against  a  domestic  institution  in  the 
United  States.  Indeed,  some  southerners  thought  the  annexa- 
tion of  Texas  of  so  grave  importance  to  the  United  States  as  a 
whole,  for  international  and  commercial  reasons,  that  they  would 
have  been  much  more  outspoken  for  it,  had  it  not  been  for  the 
fact  that  the  slavery  embarrassment  caused  them  to  approach 
the  subject  with  the  greatest  caution.' 

But,  once  the  slavery  issue  had  been  clearly  drawn  in  con- 
nection with  Texas,  many  southerners  realized  that  to  permit 
it  to  be  rejected  because  it  would  enter  as  a  slave  state  would 
be  for  the  south  to  surrender  all  rights.  After  Texas  had  been 
kept  out  for  some  eight  years,  the  south  seems  to  have  become 
fully  awakened  to  the  importance  of  Texas  in  connection  with 

e  Calhoon  from  E.  M.  T.  Hunter,  October  10,  1843,  from  F.  W.  Pickens,  November 
24,  1843,  from  Eichard  Hawes,  March  21,  1844,  from  Isaac  Van  Zant  and  J. 
Pinckney  Henderson,  April  22,  1844,  from  James  Gadsden,  May  3,  1844,  from  E.  F. 
Simpson,  May  24,  1844,  from  William  M.  Gwin,  August  20,  1844,  from  Duff 
Green,  December  13,  20,  1844,  from  Eustis  Prescott,  January  4,  1845,  from  J.  S. 
Mayfield,  February  19,  1845,  from  J.  Hamilton,  February  28,  1845,  from  A.  J. 
Donelson,  March  24,  1845,  Calhoun  papers;  George  D.  Phillips  to  Cobb,  February 
21,  25,  1845,  in  Correspondence  of  Toombs,  Stephens,  and  Cobb,  65,  66;  Calhoun 
to  Charles  J.  Ingersoll,  July  2,  1844,  Calhoun  from  Ambrose  D.  Mann,  October  31, 
1844,  from  William  E.  King,  January  29,  1845,  from  John  Tyler,  June  5,  1848,  in 
Correspondence  of  John  C.  Calhoun,  599,  982,  1022,  1172. 


24  Chauncey  S.  Boucher  M- v- H- R 

slavery.  Then,  with  the  views  of  Great  Britain  and  the  north- 
ern states  not  only  disclosed  but  openly  avowed,  the  annexation 
of  Texas  became  to  some  southerners  the  most  vital  issue  since 
the  American  revolution.  "On  it,"  wrote  one  of  these,  "hinges 
the  very  existence  of  our  Southern  Institutions,  and  if  we  of  the 
south  now  prove  recreant,  we  ...  must  [be]  content  to  be 
Hewers  of  wood  and  Drawers  of  water  for  our  Northern  Breth- 
ren. "7 

South  Carolina,  the  state  usually  accredited  with  being  in  the 
van  when  an  aggressive  program  to  serve  southern  interests 
was  on  foot,  did  not  become  generally  interested  in  Texas  until 
1843 ;  and  even  then  that  state  and  its  great  statesman,  Calhoun, 
were  quite  as  much  interested  in  the  tariff  and  in  general  gov- 
ernmental reform  as  in  Texas.  Indeed,  they  became  insistent 
upon  the  annexation  only  when  they  saw  that  defeat  of  that 
project  would  be  regarded  as  a  great  victory  for  the  abolition- 
ists and  would  serve  to  encourage  them  in  further  aggressions. 
Another  phase  which  interested  South  Carolinians  quite  as 
much  as  any  other  was  the  danger  that  Texas  would  fall  into 
the  hands  of  a  commercial  rival  whose  hold  would  involve  inter- 
national trouble  in  view  of  the  Monroe  doctrine.8 

One  of  the  best  proofs  that  the  south  was  not  united  in  a 
deep-laid  slavery-extension  plot  to  add  another  slave  state  is 
found  in  a  suggestion,  made  late  in  1843,  that  the  Texas  ques- 

7  Calhoun  from  E.  J.  Black,  March  4,  1844,  from  Eichard  Hawes,  March  21,  1844, 
from  J.  H.  Howard,  May  2,  1844,  from  James  Gadsden,  May  3,  1844,  from  L».  A. 
Hoe,  May  11,  1844,  from  J.  H.  Hammond,  June  7,  1844,  from  B.  F.  Simpson, 
August  4,  1844,  from  W.  M.  Corry,  February  14,  1845,  Calhoun  papers;  Wilson 
Lumpkin  to  Calhoun,  March  23,  1844,  Calhoun  to  George  W.  Houk,  October  14, 
1844,  in  Correspondence  of  John  C.  Calhoun,  624,  942;  Cobb  from  Thomas  Ritchie, 
May  6,  1844,  from  J.  W.  Burney,  January  31,  1845,  from  Junius  Hillyer,  Feb- 
ruary 15,  1845,  Toombs  to  Stephens,  February  16,  1845,  in  Correspondence  of 
Toombs,  Stephens,  and  Cobb,  56,  62,  63. 

sChauneey  S.  Boucher,  "The  annexation  of  Texas  and  the  Bluffton  movement 
in  South  Carolina,"  in  the  MISSISSIPPI  VALLEY  HISTORICAL!  REVIEW,  6:3-33. 
F.  W.  Pickens  wrote  to  Calhoun  on  November  24,  1843:  "I  fully  agree  as  to 
the  importance  of  the  Texas  question  in  all  its  bearings.  I  think  we  are  bound 
to  take  the  highest  and  most  decided  grounds.  I  think  the  possession  of  Texas 
as  a  British  colony  would  be  the  just  cause  of  war,  and  if  the  non-slaveholding 
states  oppose  its  admission  upon  the  ground  of  its  strengthening  the  slaveholding 
interests,  etc.,  we  will  be  bound  in  self  respect  and  self-preservation  to  join  Texas 
with  or  without  the  Union.  It  is  a  grave  and  a  momentous  question  in  all  its 
bearings,  and  I  am  ready  to  pledge  all  that  I  am  and  all  that  I  hope  to  be  on  its 
issues. ' '  Calhoun  papers. 


VOL  vin,  NOS.  1-2        That  Aggressive  Slavocracy  25 

tion  might  be  used  to  unite  the  south  politically  in  an  endeavor 
to  defeat  both  Clay  and  Van  Buren  and  prevent  the  betrayal 
expected  in  tariff  legislation.  Again  and  again  letters  written 
in  the  early  part  of  1844  show  that  the  south  was  not  united 
on  any  stand  and  that  the  men  who  saw  the  international  and 
sectional  dangers  involved  in  the  defeat  of  annexation  were 
trying  to  devise  some  means  to.  arouse  southerners  to  present 
a  united  front  for  Texas.  In  South  Carolina  embarrassment 
was  caused  by  the  Bluffton  movement  led  by  Robert  B.  Ehett 
for  state  action — nullification  or  secession  —  against  the  tariff, 
for  this  movement  created  distraction  just  when  unity  was 
needed.9 

Letters  written  to  Calhoun  during  1842,  1843,  and  1844  show 
that  the  writers  were  interested  primarily  in  keeping  the  demo- 
cratic party,  and  thus  the  administration  of  the  government, 
true  to  certain  principles  —  basic  principles  of  administration, 
illustrated  specifically  in  the  tariff,  currency,  banking,  public 
lands,  et  cetera,  and  only  secondarily  in  slavery.  There  are  no 
signs  of  a  "plot"  of  an  "aggressive  slavocracy. ' '  Indeed,  there 
are  dozens  of  letters  with  no  mention  of  slavery.  Accordingly, 
Texas  was  not  the  biggest  issue  in  the  election  of  1844,  from  the 
standpoint  of  many  a  southerner.  It  was  the  basic  change  of 
principles  for  national  administration,  the  triumph  of  true 
democracy — "the  true  Republican  principles,"  as  they  were 
called  —  that  was  welcomed  so  much  with  the  victory  of  Polk.10 

» Virgil  Maxcy  wrote  on  December  14,  1843:  "Some  of  your  friends  at  Wash- 
ington I  fear  would  hesitate  at  taking  issue  with  Mr.  V.  B.  and  Mr.  Clay  on  what 
they  consider  your  extreme  notions  on  the  subject  of  Tariff  alone,  and  for  that 
reason  to  prevent  the  possibility  of  a  schism  or  any  faltering  in  the  ranks  it  seemed 
to  me  expedient  to  strengthen  your  position  and  your  hold  on  them  by  the  addition 
of  the  Texas  question.  This  course  would  I  think  strengthen  you  throughout  the 
South,  where  I  should  hope  there  would  be  no  division  on  the  Texas  question,  tho' 
on  the  subject  of  a  protective  tariff,  there  are  still  some,  who  feel  a  toleration 
for  discrimination,  not  only  for  revenue,  but  for  the  purpose  of  incidental  protection 
or  encouragement  of  manufactures."  Calhoun  papers.  See  also  Boucher,  "The 
annexation  of  Texas  and  the  Bluffton  movement  in  South  Carolina,'"  in  the  MIS- 
SISSIPPI VALLEY  HISTORICAL  REVIEW,  6:9;  Calhoun  from  E.  M.  T.  Hunter,  October 
10,  1843,  from  J.  H.  Howard,  May  2,  1844,  from  James  Gadsden,  May  3,  1844, 
from  Eustis  Prescott,  May  11,  1844,  from  J.  H.  Campbell,  May  14,  1844,  from  F.  H. 
Elmore,  July  30,  1844,  from  H.  Hailey,  July  30,  1844,  from  F.  W.  Pickens,  August 
10,  1844,  in  the  Calhoun  papers;  Virgil  Maxcy  to  Calhoun,  December  3,  1843,  in 
Correspondence  of  John  C.  Calhoun,  896. 

10  Calhoun  from  J.  H.  Hammond,  February  3,  1844,  from  E.  B.  Ehett,  February 
21,  1844,  from  George  McDuffie,  March  10,  1844,  from  F.  W.  Pickens,  August  10, 


26  Cliauncey  S.  Boucher  M.V.H.B. 

After  Calhoun  became  secretary  of  state  southerners  urged 
him  to  take  "the  highest  grounds"  on  the  Oregon  question  quite 
as  often  as  they  urged  a  similar  course  regarding  Texas.  Many 
of  these  correspondents  were  able  to  view  the  two  questions 
more  disinterestedly,  from  the  standpoint  of  national  welfare, 
than  many  of  their  brethren  in  the  north.  They  did  not  worry 
about  the  future  admission  of  new  free  states  formed  from  the 
Oregon  territory,  and  indeed  were  not  sure  that  if  Texas  were 
divided  the  result  would  not  be  three  free  states  and  two  slave 
states  formed  from  its  territory.11  Many  men  agreed  with  How- 
ell  Cobb  of  Georgia,  who  was  an  ardent  "fifty-four-forty"  man 
and  was  quite  disgusted  that  we  surrendered  so  much  of  the 
Oregon  territory  and  yet  showed  such  haste  to  bait  Mexico.12 
After  Polk,  in  his  message  of  December  2,  1845,  announced 
that  "the  proposition  of  compromise  which  had  been  made 
[by  the  United  States]  and  rejected  [by  England]  was  by  my 
direction  subsequently  withdrawn  and  our  title  to  the  whole 
Oregon  territory  asserted,  and,  as  is  believed,  maintained  by 
irrefragable  facts  and  arguments, ' m  and  Calhoun  urged  cau- 
tion and  moderation  to  avoid  a  war  with  England,  but  at  the 
same  time  was  ready  to  insist  on  a  fair  and  just  settlement, 
southerners  generally  approved  this  stand.  In  Calhoun 's  cor- 
respondence, however,  there  is  no  evidence  that  the  south  wanted 
to  limit  the  Oregon  territory  in  order  to  limit  the  area  of  the 
free  states.  The  only  references  to  the  slavery  question  are 

1844,  from  Francis  Wharton,  August  21,  1844,  from  J.  Hamilton,  September  12, 
October  4,  1844,  from  W.  E.  King,  November  29,  1844,  from  J.  S.  Barbour,  Decem- 
ber 18,  1844,  from  Duff  Green,  March  26,  1845,  Calhoun  papers. 

11  Calhoun  from  F.  H.  Elmore,  March  11,  1844,  from  F.  W.  Pickens,  April  22, 
1844,  September  29,  1845,  from  G.  W.  Houk,  October  1,  1844,  from  Thomas  G. 
Clemson,  November  11,  1845,  from  H.  W.  Connor,  January  6,  1846,  from  Elwood 
Fisher,  January  10,  1846,  from  J.  H.  Howard,  January  16,  1846,  Calhoun  papers; 
George  D.  Phillips  to  Cobb,  December  30,  1845,  Stephens  to  George  W.  Crawford, 
February  3,  1846,  Cobb  to  his  wife,  May  10,  1846,  and  several  letters  to  and  from 
Cobb  in  the  middle  of  1846,  in  Correspondence  of  Toombs,  Stephens,  and  Cobb, 
69,  71,  76. 

!2  Charles  J.  McDonald,  former  governor  of  Georgia,  wrote  to  Cobb  on  July  7, 
1846,  from  Macon,  Georgia:  ''The  whole  course  of  Congress  in  regard  to  the 
Oregon  question  has  shown  the  ignoble  spirit  that  would  concede  to  power  what 
it  would  maintain  against  a  nation  less  able  to  defend  its  usurpations.*'  Ibid.,  84. 
See  also  John  H.  Lumpkin  to  Cobb,  November  13,  1846,  ibid.,  86. 

is  James  D.  Eichardson,  A  compilation  of  the  messages  and  papers  of  the 
presidents,  1789-1897  (Washington,  1897),  4:395. 


VOL  vin,  NOS.  1-2        That  Aggressive  Slavocracy  27 

occasional  allusions  to  the  northern  charge  that  the  south, 
having  secured  Texas,  wanted  to  let  Oregon  go  by  default  or 
greatly  to  reduce  that  territory,  so  as  to  lessen  the  power  of 
the  free  states.  And  here  the  remarkable  thing  is  the  slight 
attention  paid  even  to  this  charge,  which  was  false.  So  far  from 
being  on  the  aggressive,  the  south  was  not  yet  thoroughly 
awake  to  the  necessity  of  defensive  measures.1* 

As  annexation  was  delayed,  through  the  later  eighteen-thir- 
ties,  it  became  evident  that  the  south  was  not  and  could  not 
be  united  as  a  champion  of  annexation.  In  the  early  eight een- 
forties  southern  whigs  were  inclined  to  oppose  the  annexation 
project,  lest  it  reflect  credit  upon  Tyler  and,  later,  upon  Calhoun, 
who  became  secretary  of  state.  Clay,  while  on  his  triumphal 
progress  through  the  south  on  the  eve  of  the  campaign  of 
1844,  concluded  that  the  southern  interest  in  and  insistence 
upon  annexation  was  much  less  than  represented,  and  he  acted 
accordingly  in  his  "Raleigh  letter, "  which  indeed  was  approved 
by  several  southern  leaders.  The  points  raised  by  Clay  regard- 
ing a  compromising  of  our  national  character,  the  danger  of  a 
war  with  Mexico,  and  the  danger  to  the  integrity  of  the  union 
had  weight  with  many  southerners,  and  especially  with  southern 
whig  members  of  congress.15  While  some  of  these  southern 
opponents  of  annexation,  both  democrats  and  whigs,  in  the 
early  days  of  the  campaign  of  1844  clearly  stated  that  their 
objection  was  merely  against  too  hasty  action  and  that  they 
hoped  for  annexation  when  temporary  difficulties  had  passed, 
others  followed  the  reasoning  of  Waddy  Thompson  and  opposed 
annexation  on  the  fundamental  grounds  that,  by  causing  emi- 
gration from  the  old  slave  states,  it  would  weaken  and  would 
ultimately  endanger  the  slave  interests  in  the  old  states.  Some 
whigs  objected  that  the  annexation  question  was  endangering 
party  success  and  others  were  distinct  champions  of  the  union 
and  opposed  annexation  because  it  might  lead  to  a  dissolution  of 
the  union.18 

i*Many  letters  written  in  the  first  half  of  1846,  in  the  Calhoun  papers.  Albon 
Chase  to  Cobb,  May  20,  1846,  in  Correspondence  of  Toombs,  Stephens,  and  Gobi),  77. 

*5  Cole,  The  whig  party  in  the  south,  110,  111. 

16  George  McDuffie  wrote  to  Calhoun  from  Washington  on  January  3,  1843 : 
"  There  is  an  impression  here  that  the  administration  are  negotiating  for  the 
annexation  of  Texas,  but  nothing  certain  or  definite  has  transpired.  My  own 
opinion  is  that  nothing,  but  a  very  high  state  of  necessity  will  justify  the  measure 


28  Chauncey  8.  Boucher  M- v- H- R- 

The  position  of  Clay  and  the  whig  party  proved  unsatisfactory 
to  many  voters  who  had  supported  the  party  in  1840,  however, 
and  the  whig  vote  in  the  south  was  materially  lessened,  due 
both  to  the  Texas  question  and  to  the  lack  of  something  cor- 
responding to  the  "Log  Cabin  and  Hard  Cider "  appeal  to  the 
districts  outside  the  black  belt.  It  was  not  the  south  alone, 
however,  nor  the  Texas  issue  alone,  which  elected  Polk  in  1844. 
The  vote  of  the  north  and  the  Oregon  question  were  equally 
responsible.  The  people  the  country  over,  north  as  well  as 
south,  were  wild  for  expansion,  "manifest  destiny,"  and  com- 
paratively little  attention  was  given  to  problems  involved  in 
slavery  extension.17  After  the  popular  verdict  was  known  and 
the  joint  resolution  method  of  annexation  was  resorted  to, 
enough  southern  whigs  gave  in  to  cause  the  success  of  the 
measure,  but  the  general  body  of  the  southern  whig  congressmen 
opposed  on  grounds  of  constitutionality  or  because  they  believed 
it  would  prove  disastrous  to  the  slaveholding  interests  in  some 
if  not  in  all  of  the  old  states.18 

either  on  the  score  of  justice  or  policy.  It  would  be  ipso  facto  making  war  on 
Mexico,  if  done  without  her  concurrence,  and  there  would  be  hazard  that  Great 
Britain  would  take  part  with  Mexico."  Calhoun  papers.  See  also  Boucher,  "The 
annexation  of  Texas  and  the  Bluffton  movement  in  South  Carolina, "  in  the 
MISSISSIPPI  VALLEY  HISTORICAL  KEVIEW,  6:3-33,  and  B.  F.  Simpson  to  Calhoun, 
August  24,  1844,  in  the  Calhoun  papers. 

"Cole,  The  whig  party  in  the  south.  Calhoun  from  Thomas  Scott,  April  4,  1844, 
from  William  Hale,  May  18,  1844,  from  Wilson  Shannon,  May  25,  1844,  Calhoun 
papers. 

is  Cole,  The  whig  party  in  the  south,  118.  Toombs  wrote  to  Stephens  on  February 
16,  1845:  "I  see  nothing  but  evil  to  our  party  and  the  country  that  can  come 
out  of  this  question  in  the  future.  ...  I  concur  with  you  in  but  one  of  [your 
re]asons  for  desiring  annexation  and  that  is  that  [it  will]  give  power  to  the 
slave  states.  I  firmly  believe  [that  in]  every  other  respect  it  will  be  an  unmixed 
evil  to  us  [?]  and  not  without  natural  disadvantages  as  well  as  [advantages. " 
Toombs  wrote  to  George  W.  Crawford  on  February  6,  1846,  concerning  the  Oregon 
question,  that  he  thought  it  was  raised  by  the  democrats  simply  for  political 
purposes,  and  that  Polk  was  playing  it  for  such.  Toombs  said  that  he  thought 
that  Polk  had  no  idea  of  making  war  on  anybody  other  than  the  whigs,  and  that 
he  hoped  to  get  the  whigs  in  a  compromised  position  on  the  question  before  the 
country.  "  There  is  another  view  of  this  question,  purely  sectional,  which  our 
people  don't  seem  to  understand.  Some  of  our  Southern  papers  seem  to  think 
that  we  are  very  foolish  to  risk  a  war  to  secure  anti-slave  power. ' '  He  predicted  an 
early  compromise  on  the  forty-ninth  parallel,  and  "therefore  a  loss  of  half  the 
country."  He  did  not  "care  a  fig"  about  any  part  of  the  Oregon  territory  and 
would  gladly  give  all  of  it  to  anybody  else  but  the  British.  "The  country  is  too 
large  now,  and  I  don't  want  a  foot  of  Oregon  or  an  acre  of  any  other  country, 


VOL  vin,  NOS.  1-2       That  Aggressive  Slavocracy  29 

Even  if  the  south  is  cleared  of  the  charge  of  promoting  a 
conspiracy  to  add  Texas  to  the  union  with  the  idea  of  making 
some  half  dozen  slave  states  out  of  it  for  the  sake  of  gaining 
strength  in  the  senate,  there  still  remains  the  charge  that  the 
slavocracy  was  responsible  for  bringing  on  the  Mexican  war 
with  a  view  to  adding  enough  more  territory  to  make  several 
additional  slave  states. 

'T  wouldn't  suit  them  Southun  fellers, 

They're  a  dreffle  graspin'  set, 
We  must  oilers  blow  the  bellers 

Wen  they  want  their  irons  het ; 
May  be  it's  all  right  ez  preachin', 

But  my  narves  it  kind  o'  grates, 
Wen  I  see  the  overreachin' 

0'  them  nigger-drivin'  States. 

They  may  talk  o'  Freedom's  airy 

Tell  they're  pupple  in  the  face, — 
It's  a  grand  gret  cemetary 

Fer  the  barthrights  of  our  race; 
They  jest  want  this  Californy 

So 's  to  lug  new  slave-states  in 
To  abuse  ye,  an'  to  scorn  ye, 

An'  to  plunder  ye  like  sin. 

Aint  it  cute  to  see  a  Yankee 

Take  sech  everlastin'  pains, 
All  to  git  the  Devil's  thankee 

Helpin'  on  'em  weld  their  chains? 
Wy,  it's  jest  ez  clear  ez  figgers, 

Clear  ez  one  an'  one  make  two, 
Chaps  thet  make  black  slaves  o'  niggers 

Want  to  make  wite  slaves  o'  you. 

Thus  it  was  that  James  Russell  Lowell,  through  his  fictitious 
spokesman,  Hosea  Biglow,  represented  the  sentiments  of  thou- 
sands in  the  north  during  the  summer  of  1846.  From  this  time 
until  1861  the  charge  of  aggression  was  hurled  with  ever-increas- 

especially  without  'niggers.'  These  are  some  of  my  reasons  for  my  course  which 
don't  appear  in  print."  Such  expressions  as  these  are  the  exception  even  in 
private  correspondence  of  the  period.  Correspondence  of  Toombs,  Stephens,  and 
Cobb,  63,  72. 


30  Chauncey  S.  Boucher  M.V.H.R. 

ing  vigor  against  the  south  by  the  abolitionists,  and  the  writer 
believes  that  the  persistence  of  the  charge  from  the  end  of  the 
war  to  the  present  in  historical  works  is  due  to  the  fact  that 
most  of  these  works  have  been  based  on  sources  which,,  in  the 
final  analysis,  are  really  of  abolitionist  origin.  The  writer  be- 
lieves that  the  south,  instead  of  being  the  aggressor,  was  on 
the  defensive  throughout  almost  the  entire  ante-bellum  period; 
and  that  so  far  from  having  the  unity  which  was  a  primary 
necessity  for  an  offensive  campaign,  the  south  could  not  often, 
nor  for  long,  agree  upon  even  a  defensive  program,  down  to  the 
very  eve  of  the  civil  war.  Individuals  at  times  took  a  stand  which 
may  perhaps  best  be  termed  "aggressively  defensive."  The 
well-known  individualism  of  the  southerner,  however,  militated 
against  united  action  to  the  extent  that  there  was  no  organized, 
unified  aggression. 

Although  southerners  were  accused  of  being  treacherously 
overanxious  to  avoid  war  with  England,  if  necessary  to  gain 
territory  in  the  northwest  which  would  add  nonslaveholding  ter- 
ritory to  the  union,  at  the  same  time  that  they  were  anxious 
for  war  with  Mexico  to  add  slaveholding  territory  to  the  south- 
west, it  can  readily  be  shown  that  many  of  them  really  and 
consistently  wanted  to  avoid  war  with  both.  Some  southerners, 
indeed,  while  favoring  a  firm  stand  against  England  on  the 
Oregon  question,  recommended  patience  with  Mexico.  The  writ- 
er knows  of  no  southerner  who  openly  or  secretly  advocated 
war  with  Mexico,  before  war  had  actually  begun,  for  the  sake 
of  adding  more  slave  states.  President  Polk,  who  has  been 
accused  of  having  been  a  sectional  president,  interested  pri- 
marily in  serving  southern  interests,  seems  to  have  been  more 
of  a  national  expansionist  per  se  than  the  leader  in  a  proslavery 
plot.  And  the  writer  has  found  little  if  any  positive  evidence 
that,  even  after  the  war  was  begun,  southerners  supported  it  in 
the  early  period  for  the  sake  of  conquest  of  future  slave  states. 
Their  interest  in  this  phase  of  the  war  was  aroused  only  when 
their  attention  was  forced  to  it  by  the  Wilmot  proviso.  Such 
stand  as  they  then  took  was  again  a  defensive  one.19 

i»  Calhoun  from  F.  W.  Pickens,  April  22,  1844,  September  29,  1845,  from  J.  H. 
Howard,  January  16,  1846,  from  Charles  Anthony,  February  17,  1846,  from  Edward 
J.  Black,  February  22,  1846,  from  Alexander  Wells,  April  9,  1846,  from  Adam  Huts- 
man,  April  10,  1846,  from  Wilson  Lumpkin,  May  20,  1846,  Calhoun  papers;  Duff 
Green  to  Calhoun,  February  22,  1846,  in  Correspondence  of  John  C.  Calhoun,  1073; 


Vol.  vm,  Nos.  1-2        That  Aggressive  Slavocracy  31 

From  1842  to  1846,  judging  from  newspapers  and  correspond- 
ence, southerners  were  thinking  more  about  the  tariff  than  about 
the  territorial  phase  of  the  slavery  question.  They  were  anxious 
to  avoid  war  with  both  Great  Britain  and  Mexico,  if  it  could  be 
done  with  honor,  because  war  with  any  power  would  interfere 
with  their  program  for  tariff  and  general  governmental  reform.20 

When  President  Polk,  on  May  11,  1846,  declared  in  his  mes- 
sage to  congress  that  Mexico  had  " passed  the  boundary  of 
the  United  States, "  had  "invaded  our  territory  and  shed  Amer- 
ican blood  upon  American  soil,"  and  that  war  existed,  notwith- 
standing "all  our  efforts  to  avoid  it,"  existed  "by  the  act 
of  Mexico  herself,"  Abraham  Lincoln,  in  his  famous  "spot  res- 
olutions," and  John  C.  Calhoun,  in  numerous  speeches  in  the 
senate,  questioned  the  president's  statements;  and  while  Lin- 
coln implied  that  war  had  been  courted  and  begun  with  unbe- 
coming haste,  Calhoun  said  so  definitely.  He  deplored  the  war, 
not  simply  for  the  manner  in  which  it  had  been  brought  on,  but 
for  its  consequences.  He  remarked  to  his  friends  when  the  war, 
which  he  believed  could  and  should  have  been  avoided,  had  ac- 
tually begun,  that  it  was  a  step  from  which  the  country  would 
not  be  able  to  recover  for  a  long  time,  if  ever;  he  added  that,  for 
the  first  time  since  entering  public  life,  he  was  unable  to  see  the 
future.21 

George  McDuffie  had  been  outspokenly  opposed  to  the  annexa- 
tion of  Texas  both  on  the  score  of  justice  and  of  policy,  for  it 
"would  be  ipso  facto  making  war  on  Mexico,  if  done  without  her 
concurrence.22  Wilson  Lumpkin,  former  governor  of  Georgia, 

John  P.  King  to  Cobb,  May  7,  1846,  Cobb  to  his  wife,  May  10,  1846,  Cobb  from 
Albon  Chase,  May  20,  1846,  from  William  H.  Hull,  May  22,  1846,  in  Correspondence 
of  Toombs,  Stephens,  and  Cobb,  75,  76,  77,  78. 

20  Letters    from    Wilson    Lumpkin    to    Calhoun,    May    20,    November    26,    1846, 
in  the  Calhoun  papers,  are  typical  of  scores  of  letters  in  this  and  in  other  collections. 

21  The  works  of  John  C.  Calhoun,  edited  by  Richard  K.  Cralle  (New  York,  1857), 
4:355,  363,  371. 

22  George   MeDuffie  to   Calhoun,   January   3,    1843,   Calhoun   papers.     J.    Gregg 
wrote  to  Calhoun  on  February  17,  1847:     "You  have  fully  confirmed  what  I  have 
thought   all   along  and   said   frequently   in   my  family   though  I   did   not  care   to 
say  much  about  it  out  of  doors  whilse  the  war  was  going  on,  that  if  Gen'l  Taylor 
had  not  been  ordered  from  Corpus  Christi  to  the  Rio  Grande  we  would  have  had 
no  war  and  that  Mr.  Polk  had  very  injudiciously  and  imprudently  dragged  us  into 
it  as  there  was  no  kind  of  necessity  whatever  for  that  ill  fated  movement. 

"The  Abolitionists  and  Northern  Members  generally  objected  and  predicted 
that  the  annexation  of  Texas  would  lead  to  a/  war  with  Mexico  but  we  all  Mr. 


32  Chauncey  8.  Boucher 


M.  v.  H.  R. 


wrote  on  May  20,  1846,  in  a  tone  which  indicated  anything  but 
rejoicing.  "We  are  actually  at  war  with  Mexico,  whether 
Constitutionally  so  or  not,"  he  said.  "And  I  now  seriously  ap- 
prehend our  difficulties  with  England  will  not  be  speedily  ad- 
justed. Indeed  I  think  it  possible,  that  our  Mexican  war  may  be 
the  commencement  of  troubles,  that  may  shake  to  the  center, 
all  the  principal  governments  of  the  Civilized  World.  Should 
the  great  battle  of  the  World  come,  we  shall  of  course  claim 
to  ourselves  the  credit  of  fighting  on  the  side  of  liberty  and 
Republicanism  against  Monarchy  and  Despotism.  But  I  cannot 
see  so  clearly  where  we  may  find  ourselves  at  the  close  of  the 

Polk  and  all  [sic]  insisted  on  it  that  this  would  not  necessarily  follow,  nor  would 
it  had  it  not  been  for  Mr.  Folk's  utter  lack  of  judgment  and  unaccountable  indis- 
cretion." Calhoun  papers. 

P.  S.  Buckingham  wrote  on  February  21,  1847,  that  Calhoun  7s  friends  in 
Virginia  were  grateful  to  him  for  "the  high  and  impregnable  moral  ground  which 
you  have  taken  on  the,  subject  of  our  Mexican  difficulties.  The  people  regard  the 
War  as  Mr.  Folk's  War."  Ibid.  Cobb  wrote  to  his  wife  on  May  10,  1846:  "It 
is  now  settled  that  we  are  at  war  with  Mexico,  and  on  tomorrow  the  President 
is  to  send  in  to  Congress  a  war  message,  and  immediately  legislation  will  be  had 
for  the  prompt  and  energetic  enforcement  of  our  rights  against  Mexico.  .  .  . 
I  confess  I  do  not  feel  so  warlike  myself.  I  prefer  a  f oeman  worthy  of  my  steeL 
The  reflection  that  we  are  so  eager  to  avenge  ourselves  upon  this  poor,  imbecile, 
self -distracted  province,  and  at  the  same  time  sacrifice  rights  more  'clear  and 
unquestionable'  to  appease  the  threatened  anger  of  her  Brittanie  Majesty,  is  to 
me  humiliating  in  the  extreme.  However  I  will  do  my  duty  in  both  cases  honestly 
and  fearlessly,  and  trust  the  result  to  God  and  to  my  country."  Albon  Chase, 
editor  of  the  Southern  Banner  (Athens,  Georgia),  wrote  to  Cobb  on  May  20,  1846: 
"I  am  not  disposed  to  argue  any  point  connected  with  the  Oregon  or  Texas  con- 
troversy. I  am  ranked  here  as  a  54°  40'  man,  though  I  do  not  hesitate  to  avow 
that  I  would  yield  much  for  the  sake  of  peace.  I  would  take  49°  if  England 
offered  it,  to  avoid  a  greater  evil  than  the  failure  to  obtain  possession  of  our 
territory  north  of  that  line.  And  in  this,  at  least,  am  not  inconsistent  with  myself; 
for  if  while  at  peace,  Mexico  had  entered  into  a  negotiation  relative  to  boundary, 
I  would  not  insist  upon  the  whole  country  east  of  the  Eio  Grande  for  the  whole 
length  of  that  river.  I  would  have  been  gratified  at  a  compromise  with  her  even, 
for  the  sake  of  peace.  But  it  is  too  late  now,  and  it  may1  ere  long  be  too  late  in 
regard  to  Oregon."  William  Hope  Hull  wrote  to  Cobb  from  Athens,  Georgia,  on 
May  22,  1846,  that  Clarke  county  was  too  much  under  the  influence  of  whiggery 
to  have  much  enthusiasm  in  raising  troops  for  Texas.  He  cautioned  that  the  dem- 
ocratic party  should  not  get  itself  into  an  untenable  position  on  the  boundary  of 
Texas,  and  that  the  true  boundary  was  not  the  Eio  del  Norte  for  its  whole  course. 
"No  possible  logic  can  prove  that  Santa  Fe  and  the  other  towns  on  the  east  side 
of  the  river  on  its  upper  streams,  were  ever  a  portion  of  Texas.  The  true  line 
would  leave  the  river  somewhere  above  Mier,  and  follow  the  mountains  north, 
leaving  a  large  section  between  the  line  and"  the  upper  parts  of  the  river1." 
Correspondence  of  Toombs,  Stephens,  and  Cobb,  76,  77,  78. 


VOL  vin,  NOS.  1-2        That  Aggressive  Slavocracy  33 

great  struggle."  He  hinted  rather  strongly  at  a  belief  that 
the  president  had  been  duped  by  the  wiles  and  schemes  of  a 
war  faction  which  wanted  the  war  to  give  it  "  influence,  conse- 
quence and  popularity. ' '  He  regretted  that  the  principle  had 
apparently  been  recognized  that  the  president  could  at  any  time 
force  the  country  into  war,  without  the  aid  or  consent  of 
congress,  and  that  patriotism  demanded  of  congress  the  supplies 
to  carry  on  that  war,  without  even  allowing  it  time  to  deliber- 
ate.23 

When  news  arrived  of  the  skirmishes  on  the  Eio  Grande, 
Calhoun  did  his  best  to  get  the  administration  to  separate  the 
question  of  war  from  that  which  related  to  the  rescuing  of 
General  Taylor  and  his  forces.  The  means  necessary  for  the 
latter,  he  said,  could,  with  propriety,  be  granted  at  once,  but 
time  should  be  taken  for  due  and  deliberate  consideration  of  the 
former.  Had  this  been  done,  he  later  asserted,  all  legitimate 
points  would  soon  have  been  gained  from  Mexico,  without  an 
indefinite  and  expensive  war.  Many  letters  of  approval  came  to 
Calhoun  when  he  clearly  laid  the  blame  for  the  war  upotf  the 
lack  of  judgment  and  the  indiscretion  of  the  administration.24 

As  the  war  wore  on  and  men  and  money  were  consumed  in  great 
quantities,  Calhoun  raised  the  question  of  the  objects  in  view. 
He  had  at  first  to  accept  the  statement  of  the  president  that  it 
was  not  for  conquest,  but  merely  to  establish  our  boundary  line 
and  to  secure  indemnity  for  claims  which  antedated  the  war.  But, 
when  it  looked  as  though  more  than  enough  fighting  and  conquest 
had  come  to  pass  to  satisfy  such  objects,  and  there  seemed  to 
be  real  danger  that  all  Mexico  might  be  conquered,  either  to  be 
held  as  a  province  or  to  be  incorporated  in  the  union,  Calhoun 
sounded  a  warning  against  such  a  policy  as  dangerous  from 
many  standpoints.  Again  and  again  he  urged  his  "defensive 
line ' '  policy  as  best  to  serve  all  interests  of  the  United  States.25 

23  Wilson  Lumpkin  to  Calhoun,  May  20,  1846,  Calhoun  papers. 

2*  Calhoun  from  J.  Gregg,  February  17,  1847,  from  P.  S.  Buckingham,  February 
21,  1847,  from  Wilson  Lumpkin,  March  11,  1847,  from  Joseph  Pickens,  January  6, 
1848,  ibid.  See  also  Calhoun,  Worlcs  (GrallS,  ed.),  4:380;  John  A.  Campbell  to 
Calhoun,  November  20,  1847,  Calhoun  to  Andrew  P.  Calhoun,  May  14,  1846,  to 
Thomas  G.  Clemson,  May  28,  1846,  in  Correspondence  of  John  C.  Calhoun,  1139, 
690,  691;  John  P.  King  to  Cobb,  May  7,  1846,  in  Correspondence  of  Toombs, 
Stephens,  and  Cobb,  75;  the  Charleston  Mercury,  May  19,  1846. 

as  Calhoun,  Worlcs  (Cralle",  ed.),  4:396,  409,  418,  421;  Charleston  Southern 
Patriot,  June  27,  1846;  Greenville  Republican,  February  18,  April  16,  1847,  Janu- 


34  Chauncey  8.  Boucher  M.V.H.B. 

Calhoun  showed  that  on  northern  congressmen  quite  as  much 
as  on  those  from  the  south  rested  the  blame  for  the  precipitate 
(to  use  no  stronger  word)  recognition  of  the  war.  He  showed 
also  that  the  responsibility  for  the  determination  not  to  come 
out  of  the  war  without  taking  a  good  slice  of  Mexican  territory — 
a  determination  voiced  by  much  of  the  country  at  large  by  the 
end  of  1847  —  lay  with  northern  congressmen  of  both  parties 
quite  as  much  or  more  than  with  southerners.  His  idea  of  the 
propriety  of  seizing  and  holding  such  portion  of  the  Mexican 
territory  as  would  be  ample  to  cover  "all  proper  claims "  was 
limited  to  holding  it  only  until  the  differences  between  the  two 
countries  were  settled.  And,  certainly,  the  United  States  having 
unnecessarily  brought  on  this  war,  the  prewar  claims  should 
not  be  stretched  to  include  indemnity  for  the  cost  of  the  war.26 

South  Carolina  newspapers  quite  generally  took  the  view 
that  as  soon  as  the  enemy  was  put  beyond  the  Bio  del  Norte  the 
war  should  end;  accordingly,  the  lack  of  moderation  displayed 
in  the  north,  where  great  armies  and  a  march  on  the  city  of 
Mexico  were  talked  about,  worried  South  Carolinians.27 

Southerners  complained  that  the  United  States  government, 
in  beginning  the  war  unnecessarily  and  continuing  it  far  beyond 
any  point  of  necessity,  had  not  gained  reputation  in  the  eyes 
of  the  world  for  justice,  moderation,  or  wisdom.28  Thomas  Gr. 
Clemson,  a  South  Carolinian,  wrote  from  Brussels  in  June, 
1846,  that  he  regretted  that  the  Mexican  war  had  given  the 
monarchies  of  Europe  another  opportunity  to  display  their 
lack  of  sympathy  with  the  United  States  and  its  institutions 
and  to  point  with  scorn  to  the  ' i  efficiency ' '  of  republican,  forms 
of  government.  "If,"  he  said,  "we  could  now  bring  about  an 
honorable  peace  [after  Taylor 's  success]  and  retire  from  the 

ary   21,    1848;    Charleston  Mercury,   January    10,    11,    1848;    Columbia    Telegraph, 
February  4,  1848. 

26  Calhoun,  Worlcs  (Cralle",  ed.),  4:381. 

27  Charleston  Mercury,  May   18,   25,   1846;    Charleston  Courier,   May   15,   1846; 
Charleston  Evening  News,  May  15,  1846 ;  Charleston  Southern  Patriot,  June  5,  1846. 

28  "Much  as  I   regard  military   glory, "   said   Calhoun,   "much   as   I  rejoice  to 
witness  the  display  of  that  indomitable  energy  and  courage  which  surmounts  all 
difficulties  —  I  would  be  sorry  indeed  that  our  government  should  lose  any  portion 
of  that  high  character  for  justice,  moderation,  and  discretion,  which  distinguished 
it  in  the  early  stages  of  our  history."     Worlcs  (Crall6,  ed.),  4:  410. 


VOL  vin,  NOS.  1-2        That  Aggressive  Slavocracy  35 

Mexican  territory  without  the  usual  excesses  that  invariably  fol- 
low successful  armies,  it  would  be  a  great  point  gained."29 

Many  a  southerner's  comments  on  the  war  were  confined  to  the 
national  and  international  aspects  of  it,  with  slight  reference, 
if  any,  to  the  sectional  phase.30  James  Chestney,  writing  from 
Tuscaloosa,  Alabama,  on  November  23,  1846,  condemned  the 
Mexican  war  because  it  would  bankrupt  the  treasury,  endanger 
the  cause  of  free  trade,  and  create  discontent  in  every  section 
of  the  union,  while  it  offered  no  compensating  gain.31  To  many 
the  great  dangers  of  the  war,  other  than  the  possible  conquest 
of  and  attempt  to  hold  all  Mexico,  seemed  to  be  the  great  increase 
of  the  national  debt,  the  extension  of  the  patronage  of  the 
executive,  the  prospect  of  abandonment  of  a  metallic  currency 
for  the  paper  system,  and  the  abandonment  of  the  practical 
benefits  of  free  trade  because  of  the  necessity  for  increasing 
the  duties  to  meet  the  heavy  interest  burden  of  the  debt.  These 
occupied  the  attention  of  many  far  more  than  the  prospect  of 
adding  new  slave  states.32 

29  Thomas  G.  Clemson  to  Calhoun,  June  27,  1846,  Calhoun  papers.  A.  J.  Donelson, 
a  Tennesseean  by  birth,  wrote  from  Berlin  on  January  8,  1848,  in  a  similar  vein. 

so  Wilson  Lumpkin  to  Calhoun,  May  20,  1846,  Calhoun  papers.  Thomas  G. 
Clemson,  writing  to  Calhoun  on  March  28,  1847,  commented  on  the  war  from 
international  and  national  standpoints,  and  added:  "One  thing  I  regret,  that  is 
mixing  of  the  slavery  question.  It  appears  to  have  been  unavoidable  and  will 
perhaps  unite  the  South,  and  thus  enable  them  to  hold  on  to  the  advantages  they 
have  recently  gained."  Ibid. 

si  Calhoun  papers.  Chestney  added :  ' '  However  guilty  the  government  of  Mexico 
may  be,  the  wretched  inhabitants  of  that  part  of  the  world  are  innocent,  and 
the  terrible  calamities  and  distress  that  have  been  heaped  upon  the  people  of 
Monterey  and  its  vicinity  have  produced  no  compensating  or  corresponding  benefit 
either  to  the  American  government,  the  army,  or  the  American  people.  I  think  I 
speak  the  language  of  truth  and  soberness,  as  well  as  of  humanity,  in  regard  to 
the  matter,  and  I  am  satisfied  the  best  part  of  the  people  of  the  South  Western 
States  are  disposed  to  see  the  affair  terminate.  ...  I  trouble  myself  very 
little  with  politics,  but  claim  a  devoted  attachment  to  the  great  cause  of  democracy 
and  of  human  liberty,  which  are  identical  with  the  cause  of  humanity  itself." 
The  belief  was  frequently  expressed  in  the  south  that  more  of  evil  than  of  good 
would  come  from  the  war.  Wilson  Lumpkin  to  Calhoun,  March  11,  1847,  ibid. 

32  Calhoun,  Works  (Cralle,  ed.),  4:421;  Calhoun  to  Clemson,  February  17,  1847, 
in  Correspondence  of  John  C.  Calhoun,  718 ;  Calhoun  from  Wilson  Lumpkin,  May 
20,  1846,  from  F.  W.  Byrdsall,  August  4,  1846,  from  B.  B.  Ehett,  May  20,  1847, 
Calhoun  papers;  Cobb  from  John  P.  King,  May  7,  1846,  from  Charles  J.  McDonald, 
July  7,  1846,  from  James  F.  Cooper,  July  8,  1846,  from  John  H.  Lumpkin,  November 
13,  1846,  in  Correspondence  of  Toombs,  Stephens,  and  Cobb,  75,  84,  85,  86.  F.  W. 


36  Chauncey  8.  Boucher  M.V.H.R. 

Eobert  Toombs  of  Georgia  wrote  to  Calhoun  on  April  30, 
1847:  "I  begin  to  fear  that  the  question  [of  slavery]  is  fast 
approaching  a  crisis.  It  seems  our  successes  in  Mexico  have 
greatly  raised  the  pretensions  of  Polk  and  his  cabinet,  and  the 
weakness  and  divisions  of  Mexico  will  in  all  probability  induce 
her  to  accede  to  terms  which  we  ought  not  to  demand  and  which 
will  be  disgraceful  to  her  and  ruinous  to  us.  You  are  aware 
of  my  early  and  uniform  disrelish  of  the  idea  of  the  appropri- 
ation of  Mexican  Territory.  I  can  see  nothing  but  evil  to  come 
of  it.  And  now  I  do  not  clearly  see  how  it  can  be  well  avoided  to 
some  extent."33 

True  it  is  that  one  of  the  most  ardent  expansionist  prop- 
agandists in  the  Polk  administration  was  the  secretary  of  the 
treasury,  Robert  J.  Walker  of  Mississippi.  Early  in  the  war 
he  advocated  taking  all  the  territory  belonging  to  Mexico  north 
of  a  line  drawn  due  west  from  the  mouth  of  the  Eio  Grande  to 
the  Pacific.  His  chief  reason  for  this  policy  was  not  to  increase 
the  area  of  slavery  but  to  sustain  the  administration  by  meeting 
the  demand  of  the  people  of  the  country  at  large  for  territorial 
acquisitions.  He  was  not  an  aggressive  proslavery  man,  as  is 
shown  by  the  fact  that  for  years  he  advocated  gradual  emanci- 
pation in  the  United  States ;  he  proposed  it  for  Texas  as  a  con- 
dition of  annexation ;  he  freed  his  own  slaves  in  1838 ;  he  sus- 
tained the  treaty  for  suppressing  the  African  slave  trade;  he 
opposed  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  compromise;  and,  while 
governor  of  the  territory  of  Kansas,  he  pursued  such  a  course 
that  he  was  accused  of  being  a  traitor  to  southern  interests.34 

Byrdsall  wrote  to  Calhoun  from  New  York  on  August  4,  1846:  "One  of  our 
Commission  merchants  or  agents  of  manufacturing  establishments  of  other  States, 
a  brother  of  the  well  known  Whig  Simeon  Draper,  avowed  to  a  gentleman  of  my 
acquaintance,  that  he  hoped  the  Mexican  war  would  involve  the  country  in  a  public 
debt  of  one  hundred  million  dollars.  When  questioned  as  to  the  reason,  he  replied 
because  it  would  compel  the  restoration  of  a  high  Tariff.  This  man  is  but  one  of 
a  numerous  class  whose  selfish  interests  overrule  all  considerations  of  the  loss  of 
life  and  destruction  of  property  which  must  occur  before  such  a  debt  could  be  in- 
curred, as  well  as  all  other  considerations  of  patriotism  or  common  justice.  And  yet 
it  is  very  probable  that  he  (as  well  as  most  of  the  class  he  belongs  to)  is  a  member 
or  elder  of  a  Christian  church  —  a  praying  and  hymn  singing  man. ' '  Calhoun  papers 

33  Ibid. 

3*Elwood  Fisher  to  Calhoun,  September  24,  1846,  Calhoun  papers;  Louis  B. 
Pendleton,  Alexander  H.  Stephens  (American  crisis  biographies— Philadelphia,  1908), 
83.  T.  R.  R.  Cobb  wrote  to  Howell  Cobb  from  Athens,  Georgia,  on  June  23,  [1847] : 


VOL  vin,  NOS.  1-2        That  Aggressive  Slavocracy  37 

David  Johnson,  governor  of  South  Carolina,  wrote  to  Cal- 
houn  on  October  26,  1847  :  "The  case  contemplated  by  the  Wil- 
mot  proviso  may  never  arise.  If  unhappily  it  should  —  for  I 
should  deprecate  the  acquisition  of  territory  from  Mexico  by 
conquest  —  the  new  states  will  probably  come  to  our  aid."  He 
added  that,  even  admitting  that  the  war  had  been  rightfully 
begun  to  protect  ourselves  against  the  intrusion  of  Mexico,  we 
had  done  enough  when  we  drove  the  Mexicans  out  of  the 
territory  between  the  Nueces  and  the  Rio  Grande  ;  and  to  push 
the  war  further,  for  conquest  and  for  permanent  occupation, 
was  unwise,  unjust,  and  contrary  to  his  notions  of  moral  right.35 
Eustis  Prescott  wrote  to  Calhoun  from  Memphis,  on  November 
8,  1847:  "If  we  must  receive  territory,  it  should  be  open  to 
the  citizens  of  every  state  with  their  property,  [and]  if  such 
territory  ever  applies  to  become  a  member  of  the  Union,  the 
people  will  decide  whether  we  shall  or  shall  not  prohibit  slavery 
within  her  borders.  "36  James  Gadsden,  of  Charleston,  South 
Carolina,  wrote  to  Calhoun  on  January  23,  1848,  that  "the 
great  object  at  this  time  is  to  arrest  the  mad  designs  of  con- 
quest. .  .  .  The  cry  of  the  administration  on  that  subject 
has  been  echoed  and  the  whole  Pack  of  hungry  land  hounds 
have  opened  up  on  the  scent."  He  still  hoped,  however,  that 
the  whigs  and  the  sober-minded  patriots  of  the  democratic  party 
would  combine  against  large  acquisitions  and  would  rescue  the 
country  from  "the  catastrophe  into  which  Presidential  making 
and  a  blind  ambition  of  conquest  is  hurrying  Polk  and  his  ad- 
visers."37 John  A.  Campbell,  of  Mobile,  Alabama,  thought  that 

"I  am  opposed  to  this  Government  dismembering  Mexico.  Let  us  whip  her 
decently  and  give  her  a  good  government,  such  as  the  people  wish.  If  they  after- 
wards wish  to  be  annexed  we  can  do  it.  I  am  for  extending  the  area  of  freedom, 
but  not  by  war.  The  odious  doctrine  upon  which  Britain  acts  of  taking  territory 
for  the  expenses  of  the  war  is  anti-Democratic.  Let  the  glory  of  our  government 
be  that  not  one  citizen  lives  under  its  laws  that  is  not  there  by  choice."  Corres- 
pondence of  Toombs,  Stephens,  and  Gobi),  88. 
35  Calhoun  papers. 


37  He  added,  however,  that  probably  the  Sierra  Madre  range  was  the  great  nat- 
ural barrier  which  should  be  placed  between  the  Anglo  Saxon  and  the  Spanish 
races.  "A  river  will  not  answer.  The  whole  of  a  valley  must  b«  settled  by  the 
same  people,  and  the  valley  of  the  Eio  IGrande  is  so  susceptible  of  a  large  population, 
that  it  will  constitute  a  barrier  population,  which  with  the  difficulties  of  the  Sierra 
Madre  will  always  make  us  safe  on  that  frontier.'7  Calhoun.  papers. 


38  Chauncey  8.  Boucher  M.V.H.E. 

the  war  had  been  wrongfully  begun;  that  acquisition  of  more 
territory  was  dangerous  to  the  union  from  many  standpoints 
not  connected  with  slavery;  and  that,  from  the  standpoint  of 
the  balance  of  power  between  the  slaveholding  and  the  nonslave- 
holding  states,  it  would  be  ruinous  to  the  former,  for  much  of 
the  territory,  because  it  was  unfit  for  use  by  slaveholders,  was 
bound  to  make  free  states.38 

Of  course,  once  their  country  was  at  war,  the  people  would 
support  it,  whether  right  or  wrong.  Through  1846  and  1847 
many  letters  were  written  to  Calhoun  approving  his  course  in 
the  beginning  when  he  tried  to  avoid  the  war,  but  suggesting 
delicately  that  now  since  the  country  was  actually  at  war,  it 
would  not  do  for  anyone  to  fail  to  lend  a  vigorous  support. 
Southerners  who  were  actually  suffering  in  their  fortunes 
through  the  "accursed  war"  were  loyal  patriots  in  the  country's 
time  of  need,  even  though  they  had  no  stomach  for  the  manner 
of  getting  into  the  war  or  for  the  prospect  of  what  was  to  come 
from  it.39 

Most  of  the  men  quoted  or  referred  to  above  were  democrats. 
What  was  the  attitude  of  the  southern  whigs?  As  partisans 
their  cue  was  to  oppose  the  war  and  to  discredit  the  ambitions 
of  the  democratic  administration  as  far  as  they  dared  without 
laying  themselves  open  to  the  charge  of  being  traitors  to  their 
country.  The  statement  has  been  frequently  made,  however, 
that  during  the  ante-bellum  period  party  differences  were  sub- 
merged in  the  south  whenever  any  crisis  appeared  which  in- 
volved sectional  interests  connected  with  the  "peculiar  insti- 
tution." If  this  is  true  then  surely  here  was  a  time,  according 
to  the  orthodox  version,  when  southern  whigs  and  democrats 
alike  should  have  joined  forces  to  secure  this  accretion  of 
strength  for  the  section.  The  facts  are  that  not  even  the  demo- 
crats were  united  in  the  course  often  attributed  to  them  and 

ss  John  A.  Campbell  to  Calhoun,  November  20,  1847,  in  Correspondence  of  John 
C.  Calhoun,  1139. 

so  Calhoun  from  Wilson  Lumpkin,  May  20,  December  17,  1846,  from  H.  W. 
Connor,  January  9,  1847,  from  J.  Hamilton,  February  7,  1847,  Calhoun  papers;  Cobb 
from  Thomas  E.  B.  Cobb,  May  12,  1846,  from  J.  B.  Lamar,  June  24,  1846,  in 
Correspondence  of  Toombs,  Stephens,  and  Cobb,  76,  82;  Charleston  Mercury,  Novem- 
ber 10,  December  12,  1846;  January  12,  16,  February  1,  1847;  Greenville  Eepublican, 
October  30,  June  19,  1846;  January  15,  22,  1847;  Charleston  Southern  Patriot, 
January  19,  1847. 


VOL  vin,  NOS.  1-2       That  Aggressive  Slavocracy  39 

the  whigs  pursued,  almost  unitedly  and  quite  consistently,  a 
policy  of  opposition  to  the  war  and  its  resulting  acquisition  of 
territory.  Many  of  the  whigs  had  opposed  the  annexation  of 
Texas  because  they  wished  to  avoid  a  dishonorable  war  and 
they  opposed  the  course  of  the  president  largely  on  that  basis. 
Even  the  whig  annexationists,  such  as  Stephens  of  Georgia  and 
Brown  of  Tennessee,  charged  that  the  war  was  unnecessary 
and  unjustifiable;  they  condemned  it  as  a  war  which  aimed 
solely  at  conquest.  "Even  the  lay  members  of  the  party  soon 
began  to  lose  the  enthusiasm  which  a  successful  war,  giving 
promise  of  desirable  acquisitions  of  territory,  usually  arouses. 
They  then  demanded  that  the  war  be  terminated  at  the  earliest 
possible  occasion. ' ' 40 

With  the  introduction  into  the  house  of  the  Wilmot  proviso 
in  August  of  1846,  providing  that  none  of  the  territory  which 
might  be  acquired  from  Mexico  should  be  open  to  slavery,  the 
south  was  again  put  on  the  defensive.  It  was  soon  confronted 
with  assertions  made  on  the  floor  of  the  senate  and  elsewhere 
that  all  parties  in  the  nonslaveholding  states  had  come  to  a 
fixed  and  solemn  determination  upon  two  propositions :  one  was 
that  there  should  be  no  further  admission  into  the  union  of  any 
states  which  permitted,  by  their  constitutions,  the  existence 
of  slavery ;  and  the  other  was  that  slavery  should  not  thereafter 
exist  in  any  of  the  territories  of  the  United  States.  Surely  this 
was  warning  enough  to  cause  southerners  to  calculate  their 
relative  strength  in  the  union  and  to  resolve  that  for  the  sake 
of  preserving  the  union,  as  well  as  for  their  own  protection  in 
it,  this  design  of  the  antislavery  forces  must  be  thwarted.  So, 
instead  of  being  aggressively  interested  in  the  Mexican  war 
at  its  beginning  as  a  means  of  adding  slave  states  to  be  used 

4°  Cole,  The  whig  party  in  the  south,  119;  Pendleton,  Alexander  H.  Stephens, 
76-83,  89-92;  John  B.  Lamar  to  Cobb,  June  24,  1846,  in  Correspondence  of  Toombs, 
Stephens,  and  Cobb,  82;  Joseph  Pickens  wrote  to  Calhoun  from  Eutaw,  Alabama,  on 
January  6,  1848,  that  he  and  his  whig  friends  approved  of  Calhoun 's  speech  on 
the  war;  some  of  the  "old  Hunkers "  did  not.  "I  have  from  the  first  thought  that 
the  War  might  have  been  avoided  if  proper  prudence  had  been  used  by  Mr.  Polk. 
I  think  he  lacks  the  bump  of  caution  if  nothing  else.  I  have  no  hesitation  in 
believing  that  the  President  violated  the  Constitution  knowingly  and  willfully  in 
rushing  us  into  this  uncalled  for  and  unnatural  War  with  Mexico,  and  if  his  acts 
are  allowed  to  go  unrebuked  the  Constitution  is  a  perfect  dead  letter."  Calhoun 
papers. 


40  Chauncey  8.  Boucher  M.V.H.R. 

for  an  aggressive  purpose,  the  south  was  forced,  during  the 
course  of  the  war,  to  become  interested  in  a  negative  and  de- 
fensive phase  of  the  territorial  question;  it  must  prevent  the 
war  from  being  used  to  serve  an  aggressive  purpose  by  the 
enemies  of  slavery.41 

Joseph  W.  Lesesne  of  Mobile  wrote  that  although  in  the 
earlier  period  of  the  war  there  had  been  in  the  south,  as  in 
the  north,  a  strong  sentiment  for  acquisition  of  territory  — 
because  "an  insane  thirst  after  land"  was  "the  great  American 
disease"  —  there  was  now,  in  August  of  1847,  a  growing  dis- 
position in  the  south  to  come  out  boldly  against  further  acqui- 
sition of  territory  as  the  only  practicable  mode  of  saving  the 
south;  for,  if  a  result  of  the  increase  of  territory  should  be 
the  enactment  of  the  Wilmot  proviso  into  law,  it  would  mean 
ruin  for  the  south.42  Thus  the  early  enthusiasm  of  the  south 
for  new  territory  was  of  the  character  common  to  the  people 
of  the  country  as  a  whole.  But  when  southerners  appreciated 
fully  the  slavery  complication  and  saw  that  the  prospect  of 
new  territory  was  causing  further  attacks  by  the  abolitionists, 
they  rued  the  day  when  conquest  was  begun.43 

When  the  Wilmot  proviso  brought  the  sectional  issue  squarely 

4i  Calhoun,  Works  (Cralle,  ed.),  4:340;  Calhoun  from  J.  Hamilton,  February  7, 
1847,  from  Samuel  A.  Wales,  June  17,  1847,  from  J.  W.  A.  Pettit,  June  18,  1847, 
from  F.  W.  Byrdsall,  July  29,  1847,  from  Daniel  E.  Huger  and  others,  August  2, 
1847,  from  Joseph  W.  Lesesne,  August  21,  1847,  from  Elwood  Fisher,  August  22, 
1847,  Calhoun  papers;  Calhoun  from  Edward  Fisher,  December  2,  1846,  from  Wilson 
Lumpkin,  January  6,  1847,  from  Fitzwilliam  Byrdsall,  February  14,  1847,  Calhoun 
to  Mrs.  T.  G.  Clemson,  December-  27,  1846,  in  Correspondence  of  John  C.  Calhoun, 
716,  1096,  1102,  1104;  Charleston  Mercury,  January  14,  February  17,  June  24, 
1847;  Greenville  Republican,  January  22,  February  12,  1847;  Pendleton  Messenger, 
January  22,  1847. 

*2  Joseph  W.  Lesesne  to  Calhoun,  August  24,  1847,  in  Correspondence  of  John 
C.  Calhoun,  1130. 

*a  Joseph  W.  Lesesne,  writing  to  Calhoun  from  Mobile  on  August  21,  1847, 
commented  at  great  length  on  the  fact  that  the  people  of  the  south  were  not 
sufficiently  aroused  for  their  own  defense  against  the  attacks  from  the  north,  of 
which  the  Wilmot  proviso  was  but  one  example.  "  Should  the  Whig  party  concur 
with  us  that  for  the  sake  of  peace  on  this  question  we  will  take  no  more  territory 
we  may  escape  the  dangers  that  threaten  us."  Elwood  Fisher,  writing  to  Calhoun 
from  Cincinnati  on  August  22,  1847,  said  that  political  rumors  had  it  that  the 
Silas  Wright  men  of  New  York  insisted  on  acquisition  of  territory  to  augment  the 
strength  of  the  nonslaveholding  states,  and  that  both  parties  in  that  state  were 
warmly  in  favor  of  the  Wilmot  proviso  because  they  could  make  of  it  good  political 
capital  with  the  people.  Calhoun  papers. 


VOL  viii,  NOS.  1-2        That  Aggressive  Slavocracy  41 

before  congress  southern  whigs  joined  southern  democrats  to 
block  the  measure,  and  were  successful,  thanks  to  some  "north- 
ern men  with  southern  principles."  The  northern  whigs  hav- 
ing shown  fairly  clearly  their  antislavery  character,  southern 
whigs  tried  to  solve  the  problem  of  party  harmony  by  proclaim- 
ing their  hostility  to  the  acquisition  of  territory  as  a  result 
of  the  war.  Indeed,  they  came  to  believe  that  not  simply  the 
preservation  of  the  whig  party  was  at  stake,  but  quite  as  likely 
either  the  "peculiar  institution"  or  the  union.  Patriotism 
therefore  demanded  that  this  dangerous  slavery  complication 
be  avoided  by  blocking  annexation  of  Mexican  territory.44  Even 
General  Taylor,  who,  it  has  been  said,  was  later  elected  as  a 
southern  president,  announced,  after  Mexico  had  been  placed 
at  the  mercy  of  the  American  armies,  that  he  was  decidedly 
opposed  to  the  acquisition  of  any  territory  south  of  36°  30', 
which  might  endanger  the  permanence  of  the  union  by  fomenting 
a  sectional  controversy.  Furthermore,  when  reports  began  to 
be  circulated  that  conditions  of  soil  and  climate  would  make 
slavery  a  physical  or  an  economic  impossibility  in  most  of  the 
new  region  proposed  to  be  annexed,  the  Wilmot  proviso  became 
simply  an  insulting  abstraction  which,  together  with  the  danger 
of  additional  free  states  in  the  southwest,  could  be  avoided  by 
blocking  annexation.*5 

Thus  opposition  to  the  annexation  of  Mexican  territory  was 
accepted  by  many  southern  whigs,  and  many  southern  demo- 
crats as  well,  as  the  foundation  for  the  defense  of  the  southern 
institution  and  southern  rights.  The  Wilmot  proviso  was  but  one 
aspect  of  the  greater  issue.  A  law  passed  by  the  general  as- 
sembly of  Pennsylvania  in  March,  1847,  to  impede  and  prevent 
the  recovery  of  fugitive  slaves,  was  regarded  as  a  more  definite 
proof  that  the  north  was  preparing  to  weaken  slavery  bit  by 
bit  until  its  utter  collapse  was  assured.  Nothing  less  than  this 
was  the  ultimate  aim.  1 1  The  Mexican  war  has  been  used  by  our 
northern  and  eastern  enemies  as  a  means  by  which  they  hope 
to  rob  us  of  all  constitutional  guaranties,  subvert  institutions 
most  essential  to  our  peace  and  prosperity,  strip  us  of  the 
insignia  of  sovereignty,  pass  a  sentence  of  social  degeneration 

**Cole,  The  whig  party  in  the  south,  119;    Luther  J.  Glenn  to  Cobb,  December 
1,  1847,  in  Correspondence  of  Toombs,  Stephens,  and  Cobb,  89. 
«  Cole,  The  whig  party  in  the  south,  121-123. 


42  Chauncey  S.  Boucher  M- v- H- R- 

upon  us,  and  effect  our  complete  and  total  ruin,"  wrote  Percy 
Walker  from  Mobile  on  October  10,  1847.46 

Even  when  faced  by  this  crisis,  however,  the  south  did  not 
rally  upon  a  defensive  position  as  some  of  its  truer  citizens, 
less  interested  in  party  politics,  would  have  had  it  do.  Apathy 
was  breeding  future  trouble,  when  decision  and  firmness  were 
needed  to  avoid  it.  Southern  unity  would  work  wonders  — 
would  solve  the  problem  once  for  all,  some  believed  —  but  that 
essential  was  lacking.  A  few  men  saw  clearly  the  course  events 
were  taking  in  the  north :  the  abolitionists,  though  few  in  num- 
ber, were  recruiting  their  ranks  steadily,  and  by  clinging  stead- 
fastly to  their  basic  principle  they  were  holding  the  balance 
of  power  between  the  two  main  parties  and  were  forcing  con- 
cessions now  from  the  whigs  and  now  from  the  democrats. 
They  had,  as  a  result,  come  to  be  courted  alternately  and  to- 
gether by  both  parties  until  in  many  places  it  had  come  about 
that  no  politician  was  considered  "available"  who  could  not 
enlist  in  his  behalf  this  necessary  abolitionist  vote.  The  only 
chance  for  southerners  to  maintain  for  any  length  of  time  their 
rights  under  the  constitution  was  to  be  found  in  united  action ; 
yet  little  headway  could  be  made  in  this  direction.47 

•*«  He  added :  ' '  The  assault  has  been  kept  up  for  years,  but  under  the  false 
assurances  that  the  great  majority  of  the  non-slaveholding  people  were  not  parties 
to  it,  we  have  remained  idle  and  inactive,  until  our  enemies  have  become  powerful 
enough  to  control  the  Legislatures  of  Ten  Sovereign  States,  which  in  the  most  solemn 
forms  of  Law,  have  declared  against  us.  ...  Our  action  should  be  calm, 
determined,  and  above  all  united.  We  must  endeavor  to  make  the  Southern  States 
think  and  feel  and  act  alike,  upon  this  subject.  How  is  this  to  be  done  ? ' '  Calhoun 
papers.  Calhoun  from  C.  J.  Faulkner,  July  15,  1847,  from  Joseph  W.  Lesesne, 
September  12,  1847,  from  H.  W.  Peronneau,  September  25,  1847,  from  L.  M.  Keitt, 
October  1,  1847,  from  David  Johnson,  October  26,  1847,  from  Wilson  Lumpkin, 
December  20,  1847,  from  Wyndham  Robertson,  Jr.,  May  10,  1848,  from  F.  W. 
Byrdsall,  June  25,  1848,  from  L.  H.  Morgan,  June  30,  1848,  from  Chesselden  Ellis, 
July  5,  1848,  from  B.  F.  Porter,  July  17,  1848,  from  G.  B.  Butler,  July  29,  1848, 
ibid.-,  Calhoun,  Works  (Cralle,  ed.),  4:527;  Wilson  Lumpkin  to  Calhoun,  November 

18,  1847,  in  Correspondence  of  John  C.  Calhoun,  1135;   Isaac  E.  Holmes  to  Cobb, 
August  21,  1847,  in  Correspondence  of  Toombs,  Stephens,  and  Cobb,  88. 

*7  Calhoun  from  Wilson  Lumpkin,  August  27,  1847,  from  Joseph  W.  Lesesne, 
September  12,  1847,  from  H.  W.  Connor,  October  6,  1847,  from  Percy  Walker, 
October  10,  1847,  from  David  Johnson,  October  26,  1847,  from  A.  Bowie,  January 

19,  1848,  from  J.  A.  Campbell,  March  1,  1848,  from  W.  W.  Harlee,  June  8,  1848, 
from  W.  L.  Yancey,  June  14,  1848,  from  F.  W.  Byrdsall,  June  25,  1848,  from  Joseph 
W.  Lesesne,  July  5,  1848,  from  Benjamin  F.  Porter,  July  17,   1848,  from  Wilson 
Lumpkin,    August    25,    1848,    from    Z.    L.    Nabers,    November    29,    1848,    Calhoun 


VOL  viii,  NOS.  1-2        That  Aggressive  Slavocracy  43 

Once  the  treaty  was  concluded  and  the  new  territory  ac- 
quired, the  debate  began  in  earnest  concerning  the  powers  of 
congress  over  the  territories  and  the  rights  of  citizens  therein. 
Even  on  this  question,  however,  the  south  could  not  agree  on 
a  defensive  program.48 

papers;  Wilson  Luinpkin  to  Calhoun,  January  6,  1847,  in  Correspondence  of  John  C. 
Calhoun,  1102.  A  rather  unique  view  of  the  acquisition  of  territory  from  Mexico 
was  presented  to  Calhoun  in  January,  1848,  by  a  northern  Presbyterian  clergyman 
who  asked  that  his  name  not  be  used,  but  said  that  the  subject  matter  he  presented 
could  be  used.  He  gathered  much  of  his  information  from  abolition  sources  and 
the  more  numerous  class  of  antislavery  men  who  did  not  belong  to  abolition 
organizations.  With  these  classes  primarily,  he  said,  the  project  of  an  extensive 
acquisition  of  Mexican  territory  was  fast  gaining  ground;  in  their  view,  the  more 
extensive  the  better.  Whether  slavery  were  extended  over  this  territory  or  not, 
they  thought  that  the  annexation  of  it  would  ultimately  overthrow  the  institution. 
Of  course,  if  they  could  get  the  territory  and  keep  it  free,  the  forces  of  slavery 
would  be  so  surrounded  and .  outnumbered  that  the  end  of  the  institution  would 
soon  be  compassed.  But,  even  if  slavery  were  not  excluded,  extensive  acquisition 
of  territory  was  favored  for  the  same  ultimate  result,  though  it  would  be  longer 
in  attainment.  They  reasoned  as  follows:  in  proportion  as  slavery  is  extended  over 
a  greater  area,  in  that  proportion  is  it  weakened;  the  slaves  taken  to  the  new 
territory  must  come  from  the  old  slave  states;  in  those  states  fewer  slaveholders 
and  friends  of  slavery  would  be  left  to  bear  up  against  the  onsets  of  their  enemies; 
white  laborers  would  flow  in  to  take  the  places  of  the  removed  slaves ;  as  immigration 
and  the  laws  of  population  gave  preponderance  to  the  nonslaveholding  whites, 
antislavery  presses  could  be  set  up  right  among  the  slaveholders  without  fear  of 
molestation;  then  the  battle  would  be  more  than  half  won,  and  the  slaveholders 
could  be  defied;  the  south  did  not  have  slaves  enough  to  take  permanent  possession 
of  extensive  territory  and  hold  its  own  in  either  the  old  or  the  new  states;  with 
powers  divided  and  energies  distracted  it  could  be  cut  to  pieces  in  detail.  Only 
temporarily,  too,  would  the  south  have  the  preponderance  in  congress,  for  while 
gaining  slave  states  at  the  south,  it  would  soon  lose  them  at  the  north;  Virginia, 
Maryland,  Delaware,  Tennessee,  Kentucky,  and  North  Carolina  would  soon  become 
free.  The  writer  concluded:  "From  what  I  can  learn  I  think  the  signs  of  the 
times  hereabouts  indicate  that  the  Abolitionists  and  their  eoadjutators  will  go 
for  extensive  annexation  at  all  hazards.  If  they  can  enforce  the  Proviso  they 
will.  But  if  not  they  will  favor  secretly  if  not  openly  what  they  regard  as  the 
next  best,  i.  e.  a  great  extension  of  territory  and  a  corresponding  expansion  of 
slavery.  This  will,  perhaps,  explain  the  reason  why  the  National  Era,  the  anti- 
slavery  paper  at  Washington,  goes  for  the  acquisition  of  territory  and  yet  strenuous- 
ly urges  the  Proviso.  It  betrays  their  secret  intentions. "  He  said  that  extensive 
acquisition  was  favored  in  the  north  not  alone  by  the  antislavery  men,  for  the 
reasons  stated,  but  by  various  other  classes,  each  expecting  it  to  serve  a  peculiar 
interest;  among  such  classes  were  the  ardent  friends  of  the  administration,  specu- 
lators, capitalists,  manufacturers,  the  military,  et  cetera.  George  H.  Hatcher  to 
Calhoun,  January  5,  1848,  Calhoun  papers. 

*»Chauncey  S.  Boucher,  "The  secession  and  co-operation  movements  in  South 
Carolina,"  and  "South  Carolina  and  the  south  on  the  eve  of  secession/'  in  Wash- 


44  Chauncey  8.  Boucher  M.V.H.R. 

The  Wilmot  proviso,  which  precipitated  one  of  the  most  bit- 
terly contested  phases  of  the  slavery  controversy,  was  certainly 
not  loftily  conceived.  It  had  its  origin  among  democrats  who 
were  discontented  over  the  veto  of  internal  improvement  bills 
and  the  distribution  of  the  patronage.  Another  factor  was 
impatience  in  regard  to  Oregon;  the  northwestern  expansion- 
ists did  not  get  as  much  territory  as  they  coveted,  and  they 
claimed  that  half  of  Oregon  had  been  given  away.49 

Though  the  Wilmot  proviso  was  introduced  in  1846,  and 
many  in  the  south  at  once  saw  that  a  crisis  was  at  hand  which 
demanded  concerted  action,  and  many  suggestions  were  offered 
as  to  the  best  method  of  procedure,  no  agreement  on  policy 
or  plan  of  action  could  be  reached  in  the  next  four  years  —  in- 
deed, such  agreement  within  a  single  state  was  rare,  and  when 
reached  at  all  was  agreement  only  upon  a  first  step  which  com- 
mitted the  state  to  nothing  and  might  lead  or  be  turned  in  almost 
any  direction.  Even  in  the  state  which  was  supposed  to  be 
most  radical  and  most  free  from  internal  party  strife  —  South 
Carolina — no  agreement  could  be  reached  on  a  platform  state- 
ment of  policy  and  action  which  meant  anything  more  than  vague 
hints  or  threats.  The  proviso  did  little  to  unite  the  south  be- 
yond evoking  an  agreement  in  opinion  that  the  placing  of  such 
a  principle  upon  the  statute  books  should  be  defeated  if  pos- 
sible. Southerners  concurred  in  a  general  way  in  the  belief 
that  they  might  have  some  rights  in  the  territories,  but  as  to 
what  the  extent  of  those  rights  was,  upon  what  legal  or  constitu- 
tional basis  to  rest  them,  they  could  not  agree ;  in  other  words, 
while  they  were  united  in  believing  that  the  Wilmot  proviso  must 
be  resisted,  they  could  not  agree  upon  the  necessary  positive  po- 
sition or  statement  with  which  to  parry.  Many  suggestions  of 
principle  or  policy  were  made,  but  from  the  presentation  of  the 
proviso  until  the  election  of  1860  the  south  was  not  united  upon 
a  thoroughly  satisfactory  answer  to  the  troublesome  and  com- 
plicated territorial  question. 

ington  university  studies,  Humanistic  series,  5:97-101;  6:83-144;  Charleston  Courier, 
November  27,  December  2,  8,  16,  1847;  South  Carolina,  House  journal,  1847,  pp. 
204,  206;  Joseph  W.  Lesesne  to  Calhoun,  August  24,  1847,  in  Correspondence  of 
John  C.  Callioun,  11,  30. 

49  William  E.  Dodd,  Expansion  and  conflict  (Riverside  history  of  the  United  States 
—  Boston  and  New  York,  1915),  170. 


VOL  vin,  NOS.  1-2        That  Aggressive  Slavocracy  45 

The  divergence  of  opinion  in  the  south  in  regard  to  future 
policy  or  action,  after  the  acquisition  of  territory  had  become 
a  certainty,  is  shown  by  the  division  among  southern  whigs: 
some  advocated  disunion  if  the  proviso  were  passed ;  some  would 
have  accepted  the  extension  of  the  Missouri  compromise  line  as 
a  fair  settlement  involving  mutual  concession;  a  significant 
minority  were  ready  to  acquiesce,  if  the  proviso  should  pass 
both  houses  and  receive  the  president 's  signature.50 

Calhoun  answered  the  Wilmot  proviso  with  a  denial  of  a 
constitutional  power  in  congress  to  discriminate  between  the 
states  by  passing  a  law  which  would  "  directly,  or  by  its  effects, 
deprive  the  citizens  of  any  of  the  states  of  this  union  from  emi- 
grating with  their  property,  into  any  of  the  territories  of  the 
United  States."  The  section  could  not  be  thoroughly  united 
on  this  pronouncement,  however,  for  there  were  prominent  law- 
yers of  both  parties  in  the  south  who  believed  that  congress  did 
have  jurisdiction  over,  and  power  to  deal  with,  slavery  in  the 
territories.51 

The  proposal  to  extend  the  Missouri  compromise  line  of 
36°  30'  to  the  Pacific  coast  was  not  without  its  embarrassments 
on  points  of  principle,  for  it  would  "  yield  up  forever  the  con- 
stitutional question' ';  it  would  be  a  complete  admission  of  the 
power  of  congress  over  slavery  in  the  territories.  Nevertheless, 
the  position  of  many  was  clearly  stated  by  a  man  who  said: 
"Although  .  .  .  the  north  has  no  right  to  claim  our  ex- 
clusion from  one  foot  of  the  territory,  yet  as  they  do  claim  it 
most  earnestly  and  there  is  no  practical  benefit  in  our  setting  up 
a  counter  claim  to  any  above  36°  30'  I  am  for  settling  the  con- 
troversy by  adopting  that  line."  Others,  who  were  interested 
mainly  in  the  success  of  the  democrats  in  the  coming  election, 
had  little  patience  with  constitutional  quibbles,  asserting  that 
1 '  this  idea  that  constitutional  questions  may  not  be  compromised 
is  all  fallacious."  They  preferred  the  "Missouri  basis"  be- 
cause that  would  satisfy  the  northern  democrats  best  and  would 
bring  party  harmony,  since  both  the  northern  democrats  and 
the  southern  democrats  could,  without  sacrifice,  still  retain  their 

so  Cole,  The  whig  party  in  the  south,  124;  Calhoun  from  J.  T.  Trezevant,  June 
7,  1849,  Calhoun  papers. 

si  Calhoun  from  J.  A.  Campbell,  March  1,  1848,  ibid.;  Cole,  The  whig  party  in 
the  south,  137. 


46  Chauncey  S.  Boucher  M.V.H.R. 

particular  views  in  regard  to  the  extent  of  congressional  con- 
trol over  the  territories.52 

Squatter  sovereignty,  put  before  the  senate  in  the  Dickinson 
resolutions  in  December,  1847,  and  approved  by  Cass  in  the 
Nicholson  letter  later  in  the  same  month,  was  not  satisfactory 
to  all.  Objection  was  frequently  registered  that  it  was  but  a 
temporary  evasion  of  the  points  of  constitutional  principle  and 
not  a  permanent  and  satisfactory  solution  of  them;  and  there 
was  too  much  certainty  of  embarrassing  complications  which 
would  develop  from  an  attempt  to  apply  the  theory  in  actual 
practice.  Many,  however,  were  interested  mainly  in  the  elec- 
tion of  Cass,  were  willing  to  accept  his  Nicholson  letter  as  satis- 
factory, resented  attempts  to  force  a  definition  of  squatter 
sovereignty  any  more  clear  than  Cass  had  made,  and  opposed 
"pressing  nice,  hair-splitting  distinctions  on  the  subject  upon 
our  northern  democratic  friends,  whose  liberality  should  be 
appreciated  but  not  abused. "  Such  men,  however,  might  state 
very  clearly,  privately,  their  reasons  for  believing  that  a  ter- 
ritorial legislature  had  no  right  to  prohibit  slavery  and  that 
such  action  could  be  taken  only  when  the  constitution  for  state- 
hood was  framed.  However,  when  a  southerner  contended 
"that  our  people  should  have  permission  to  go"  to  the  terri- 
tories "with  their  peculiar  property  and  risk  the  decision  of 
a  majority  when  the  territory  forms  a  constitution  and  demands 
admission  as  a  State,  and  that  Congress  should  guarantee  this 
privilege,"  he  wTas  met  with  the  argument  presented  by  his 
neighbor,  "If  you  yield  that  settlement  to  Congress,  will  it  not 
be  surrendering  our  rights  to  the  Wilmot  proviso  men?"53 

An  added  complication  was  introduced  by  the  question  wheth- 
er by  Mexican  law  slavery  was  legally  prohibited  in  the  new 
territory.  How  to  deal  with  the  Mexican  law  without  abandon- 
ing the  principle  that  slavery  rested  upon  state  or  local  law  only, 

"Calhoun  from  B.  K.  Cralle,  July  23,  1848,  from  Laurel  Summers,  October  21, 
1848,  Calhoun  papers;  Cobb  from  Hopkins  Holsey,  December  31,  1847,  from  William 
Eutherford,  Jr.,  April  16,  1850,  in  Correspondence  of  Toombs,  Stephens,  and  Cobb, 
91,  189;  Boucher,  "The  secession  and  co-operation  movements  in  South  Carolina," 
in  Washington  university  studies,  Humanistic  series,  5:97-101. 

63  Calhoun  from  Louis  T.  Wigfall,  June  10,  1848,  from  M.  Torrance,  June  19,  1848, 
from  B.  F.  Porter,  July  17,  1848,  Calhoun  papers;  Cobb  from  Luther  J.  Glenn, 
February  12,  1848,  from  Henry  L.  Benning,  February  23,  1848,  from  James  C. 
Dobbin,  June  15,  1848,  in  Correspondence  of  Toombs,  Stephens,  and  Cobb,  95,  97,  107. 


VOL  vin,  NOS.  1-2        That  Aggressive  Slavocracy  47 

and  without  invoking  national  legislation  for  its  protection, 
became  a  difficult  question.5* 

The  plan  of  the  so-called  Clayton  compromise,  providing  ter- 
ritorial organization  for  Oregon,  New  Mexico,  and  California, 
and  leaving  the  question  of  slavery  to  the  operation  of  the 
constitution  of  the  United  States  as  interpreted  by  the  supreme 
court  also  met  with  objections.  It  was  recommended  in  July, 
1848,  by  a  senate  committee  composed  of  northern  and  southern 
men  of  both  parties;  it  passed  the  senate  with  the  aid  of  most 
of  the  southern  whig  members  —  though  they  disagreed  in  ex- 
pectations as  to  its  operation;  but  it  was  shelved  in  the  house, 
partly  because  of  the  efforts  of  southern  whigs  who  believed 
that  the  court  could  only  recognize  the  continuance  of  the  Mexi- 
can law  which  prohibited  slavery  there.55 

At  least  one  Alabama  man,  a  member  of  the  state  legislature, 
thought  that  the  only  policy  which  promised  "any  good  practical 
results "  was  for  each  southern  state  to  arm  and  equip  a  regi- 
ment of  volunteer  emigrants  and  send  them  into  the  new  terri- 
tory to  protect  all  southerners  who  might  go  there,  "in  the  full 
enjoyment  of  their  property  of  whatever  description,  should  any 
effort  be  made,  either  by  savages,  Mexicans,  or  others  to  wrest 
it  from  them.''56 

As  one  reads  the  opinions  of  southern  men  on  the  territorial 
question,  expressed  both  publicly  and  privately  from  1846 
to  1850,  one  can  only  conclude  that  the  situation  was  well 
stated  by  Joseph  W.  Lesesne  of  Mobile,  when  he  wrote:  "You 
must  be  aware  how  very  various  and  conflicting  the  opinions 
of  even  good  and  able  men  at  the  south  are  with  regard  to  the 
question  of  Slavery  in  the  territories.  All  profess  to  be  agreed 
that  the  Southern  people  are  entitled  to  occupy  them  with  their 
slaves  as  much  as  the  Northern  people  with  their  goods  and 
chattels.  But  how  is  this  right  to  be  enjoyed?  how  is  it  to  be 

s*  Cobb  from  Henry  L.  Benning,  February  23,  1848,  in  Correspondence  of  Toombs, 
Stephens,  and  Cobb,  97;  Calhoun  from  J.  A.  Campbell,  March  1,  1848,  Calhoun  papers. 

55  Cole,  The  whig  party  in  the  south,  125;  Calhoun  from  E.  K.  Crall6,  July  23, 
1848,  from  H.  V.  Johnson,  August  25,  1848,  Calhoun  papers;  Stephens  to  the  editor 
of  the  Federal  Union  (Milledgeville,  Georgia),  August  30,  1848,  in  Correspondence 
of  Toombs,  Stephens,  and  Cobb,  117.     See  also  Boucher,  "The  secession  and  co- 
operation movements  in  South  Carolina,"  in  Washington  university  studies,  Human- 
istic series,  5:70. 

56  Calhoun  from  Benjamin  Gardner,  September  5,  1849,  Calhoun  papers. 


48  Chauncey  8.  Boucher 


M.  v.  H.  E. 


endangered?  and  if  assailed,  how  is  it  to  be  protected?  whether 
the  question  is  not  a  purely  legal  or  political  one?  These  are 
points  upon  which  no  two  persons  are  entirely  agreed,  and  are 
full  of  intrinsic  difficulty. '  >57 

It  seemed  to  many  in  the  south  that  the  abolitionists  were  but 
showing  their  hand  when  they  forced  the  territorial  issue  in 
the  face  of  the  fact,  which  many  men  seem  to  have  realized, 
that  there  was  but  little  territory  in  the  recent  acquisitions 
where  slavery  could  be  maintained  profitably.  The  country 
was  by  nature  dedicated  to  freedom.  The  valleys  of  the  Sac- 
ramento and  the  San  Joaquin  were  said  to  be  almost  the  only 
districts  in  the  territory  acquired  from  Mexico  where  slavery 
could  exist,  and  the  question  was  soon  settled  there  by  the  inrush 
of  opponents  of  slavery  following  the  discovery  of  gold.  The 
territorial  question  was  an  abstraction.  Many  northerners 
and  many  southerners  knew  this.  The  northerners,  or  at  least 
the  abolitionists,  insisted  on  the  technical  exclusion  of  slavery 
by  law  simply  for  the  sake  of  principle,  determined  to  check 
slavery  at  every  point,  hoping  ultimately  for  a  checkmate.  By 
the  same  token  the  southerners  who  admitted  that  it  was  an  ab- 
straction were  interested  in  it  even  as  such,  because  they  saw 
that  if  the  abolitionists  were  allowed  to  gain  point  after  point 
without  opposition,  they  would  ultimately  strike  at  slavery  in 
the  states. 

The  election  of  1848  shows  again  that  at  this  time  there  was 
no  such  thing  as  a  united,  aggressive  slavocracy.  In  spite  of 
the  truckling  of  Van  Buren  and  others  of  the  abolitionists,  in 
spite  of  the  evidence  of  the  effective  political  use  to  which  the 
abolitionists  could  be  put,  and  in  spite  of  the  signs  of  the  times 
found  in  the  operations  of  the  free-soil  party,  the  south  could 
not  agree.  The  campaign  of  1848  showed,  perhaps,  that  for 
the  first  time  the  south  was  united  on  the  view  that  southern 
interests  must  be  protected.  This,  however,  did  not  result  in 
unity  of  action;  for,  having  been  brought  to  this  realization  of 
the  necessity  of  a  defensive  (not  aggressive)  policy,  southerners 
could  agree  no  further.  The  southern  electoral  vote  was  al- 
most evenly  divided  between  Cass  and  Taylor,  in  spite  of  the 
fact  that  Taylor  was  run  as  a  southerner,  who  could  at  least 

67  Calhoun  from  Joseph  W.  Lesesne,  July  5,  1848,  Calhoun  papers. 


VOL  viii,  NOS.  1-2        That  Aggressive  Slavocracy  49 

be  relied  upon  to  check  the  progress  of  the  antislavery  move- 
ment, if  necessary,  by  the  exercise  of  the  veto  power.  Fillmore, 
true,  was  then  regarded  as  a  bitter  pill  for  the  south  to  swallow 
in  order  to  get  Taylor — for  a  president  had  been  known  to  die 
and  give  the  vice-president  an  opportunity  for  mischief  —  but 
serious  doubts  were  registered  in  many  quarters  as  to  whether 
Taylor  could  be  the  regular  whig  candidate  and  at  the  same 
time  a  true  southerner.  Furthermore,  his  Allison  letter  left  many 
in  doubt  as  to  whether  he  would  veto  the  Wilmot  proviso  if 
passed  by  a  majority  of  congress.  Party  ties  continued  binding. 
There  was  as  much  interest  in  the  spoils  of  office  as  ever.  How 
could  the  south  be  united  on  an  aggressive  campaign  to  get  con- 
trol of  the  presidency,  when  the  leaders  of  the  section  were  so  far 
from  agreement  on  the  question  supposed  to  be  of  greatest 
interest  to  the  people?  The  word  " supposed "  is  used  deliber- 
ately, for  many  men  were  interested  quite  as  much  in  Taylor's 
views  on  the  tariff  as  in  any  other  point  involved  in  the  election. 
While  one  southerner  had  only  praise  for  Cass  and  denunci- 
ation for  Taylor,  in  view  of  the  interests  of  the  section,  his 
neighbor  used  words  equally  strong,  but  with  the  names  in  re- 
verse order.  Even  though  some  regarded  a  choice  between  Cass 
and  Taylor  as  a  choice  between  evils  for  the  south,  a  third  party, 
devoted  to  southern  interests  only,  was  out  of  the  question  at 
this  time,  for  it  would  rally  but  few  recruits.58 

Following  the  election  of  1848  —  which  settled  nothing — 
events  soon  brought  on  a  crisis.  With  the  discovery  of  gold 
in  California,  settlers  rushed  to  the  west  in  such  numbers 
that  the  territorial  question  obviously  could  be  delayed  no 
longer.  The  abolitionists  were  registering  the  vow  again  and 
again  that  not  another  slave  state  should  enter  the  union;  they 
were  making  persistent  demands  for  action  against  slavery 
and  the  slave  trade  in  the  District  of  Columbia;  interference 
with  the  rendition  of  fugitive  slaves  was  becoming  more  frequent. 

In  view  of  this  situation  the  south  became  aroused,  as  never 

58  Letters  by  Ehnore,  Ehett,  Brydsall,  Fisher,  Lmnpkin,  Peronneau,  Johnson, 
Prescott,  Calhoun,  Paulding,  Harlee,  Wigfall,  Yancey,  Ellis,  Seabrook,  Wilson, 
Webb,  DeBow,  1847  and  1848,  Calhoun  papers;  letters  by  Toombs,  Cobb,  Thomas 
W.  Thomas,  James  C.  Dobbin,  Henry  E.  Jackson,  Thomas  Smith,  W.  C.  Daniell, 
John  Forsyth,  James  F.  Cooper,  1848,  in  Correspondence  of  Toombs,  Stephens,  and 
Colb. 


50  Chauncey  8.  Boucher  M.V.H.R. 

before.  Some  defensive  action  seemed  to  be  imperative,  but  no 
agreement  could  be  reached.  During  the  course  of  the  year 
1849  literally  scores  of  suggestions  for  a  policy  and  more  or  less 
definite  action  were  made  in  as  many  different  quarters.  The 
writer  actually  has  catalogued  more  than  forty  plans  offered  for 
the  people  of  a  county,  congressional  district,  or  state,  individ- 
ually, and  for  the  south  as  a  whole.59 

Through  this  maze  of  suggestions  it  is  clear  that  though  a 
majority  realized  that  the  south  was  in  a  desperate  position, 
there  was  no  agreement  as  to  the  best  method  of  procedure ;  and, 
further,  even  when  a  more  or  less  definite  proposal  for  action 
was  made,  there  is  little  evidence  that  the  proposition  had  been 
carefully  thought  out  to  a  logical  conclusion;  more  often  than 
not  the  suggestion  came  from  a  befogged  mind. 

Early  in  1849  one  of  the  suggested  measures  was  attempted. 
On  January  15  the  southern  members  of  congress  met  in  caucus 
to  consider  an  address  prepared  by  Calhoun.  The  reports 
of  the  debates  in  the  caucus  seem  to  show  that  the  hopes  of 
those  who  expected  southern  politicians,  whigs  and  democrats, 
to  unite  in  defense  of  southern  rights,  were  groundless ;  instead, 
the  southerners  persistently  divided  on  the  old  party  lines, 
and  even  the  democrats  could  not  agree  among  themselves. 
The  whigs  displayed  their  conservatism  and  loyalty  to  the 
union.  Their  opposition  was  not  sufficient  to  prevent  the  pub- 
lication of  the  address,  but  they  did  succeed  in  relegating  it  to 
the  status  of  a  party  affair  and  thereby  robbed  it  of  much  of 
the  effect  anticipated  for  it  by  its  promoters.  Toombs  wrote 
to  Crittenden  that  he  had  told  Calhoun  very  bluntly  "that  the 
union  of  the  south  was  neither  possible  nor  desirable  until  we 
are  ready  to  dissolve  the  Union  .  .  .  and  that  we  intended  to 
stand  by  the  government  until  it  committed  an  overt  act  of 
aggression  upon  our  rights,  which  neither  we  nor  the  country 
ever  expected. '  >6°  The  southern  whigs,  in  the  main,  simply 
would  have  none  of  "Mr.  Calhoun 's  desperate  remedies, "  and 
in  several  state  legislatures  successfully  exerted  a  moderating 
influence  as  reflected  in  state  resolutions.  They  still  placed 

69  To  give  the  exact  source  citation  for  each  one  of  these  suggestions  would 
take  too  much  space.  They  are  found  in  newspaper  files  and  correspondence  collec- 
tions covering  the  year  1849. 

eo  Quoted  in  Cole,  The  whig  party  in  the  south,  140. 


VOL  vin,  NOS.  1-2        That  Aggressive  Slavocracy  51 

hope  in  Taylor's  administration  to  protect  their  rights,  and 
would  not  believe  that  consideration  of  the  disunion  alterna- 
tive would  really  ever  become  necessary. 

The  southern  address  reviewed  the  development  of  the  abo- 
litionist crusade,  the  offenses  of  the  north,  such  as  breaking  the 
provisions  of  the  constitution  for  the  rendition  of  fugitive 
slaves,  and  the  aggressions  already  launched  in  congress,  and 
concluded  that,  unless  vigorously  resisted,  the  abolitionists  would 
accomplish  their  design  in  the  near  future.  Following  emanci- 
pation, the  blacks  would  be  raised  to  political  power  by  the 
north,  and  southern  whites  would  sink  into  oblivion  and  degra- 
dation. Only  unity  of  action  would  prevent  such  a  calamity. 
However,  in  spite  of  the  most  earnest  endeavors  by  those  who 
pleaded  that  a  united  south  could  preserve  southern  constitu- 
tional rights  and  thus  the  union,  the  southern  address,  bearing 
the  names  of  only  forty-eight  signers  —  a  few  more  than  half 
the  southerners  in  congress  —  succeeded  only  in  precipitating  a 
three-cornered  political  fight  in  the  south  in  the  fall  elections 
of  1849  among  the  whigs,  the  Calhoun-" chivalry' '-southern- 
rights-democrats,  and  the  regular  or  anti-Calhoun  democrats. 
The  regular  democrats  still  believed  that  the  northern  demo- 
crats and  the  national  party  were  true  to  the  south  and  worthy 
of  confidence  and  support.  Neither  democratic  group  had  any 
confidence  in  the  southern  whigs,  who,  they  believed,  would 
support  Taylor  even  if  he  signed  a  Wilmot  proviso  law.  The 
resistance  democrats  had  no  confidence  in  the  regular  demo- 
crats, who,  they  believed,  would  cling  to  the  party  and  the  union 
until  southern  rights  were  beyond  redemption.  The  regular  demo- 
crats argued  that  all  southerners,  including  the  whigs,  should 
support  the  northern  democrats  in  their  fight  for  southern  rights, 
or  these  northern  democrats,  failing  to  receive  the  southern  sup- 
port they  deserved,  would  have  to  abandon  the  southern  cause 
and  appeal  for  abolitionist  votes  as  the  whigs  were  doing.  In- 
deed, the  southern  address,  it  seemed,  had  been  worse  than 
useless :  it  had  divided  the  south  and  thus  had  encouraged  the 
antislavery  forces  in  the  north.61 

6i  Letters  by  Lumpkin,  Wigfall,  Byrdsall,  Weems,  Sims,  Wiekliffe,  Starke,  1849, 
Calhoun  papers;  letters  by  Cobb,  Hopkins  Holsey,  John  H.  Lumpkin,  George  S. 
Houston,  John  W.  Burke,  James  B.  Bowlin,  James  Buchanan,  Lewis  Cass,  Thomas 
D.  Harris,  Henry  L.  Benning,  1849,  in  Correspondence  of  Toombs,  Stephens,  and 
Coll. 


52  Chauncey  8.  Boucher  M.V.H.R. 

While  the  status  of  California  remained  unsettled,  in  1849, 
southern  whig  leaders,  hoping  to  save  embarrassment  for  the 
Taylor  administration,  rallied  about  a  plan  to  try  to  get  the  new 
territory  admitted  as  a  single  state  before  the  inauguration. 
This  would  remove  the  troublesome  subject,  would  add  but  a 
single  state  to  the  strength  of  the  north,  and  would  evade  the 
issue  of  the  Wilmot  proviso  without  sacrificing  the  honor  of 
the  south.62 

The  resistance  or  radical  wing  of  the  southern  democrats 
had  no  patience  with  the  temporizing  of  the  southern  whigs,  saw 
only  the  prospect  of  further  aggressions  in  the  immediate  future, 
and  began  to  talk  of  resistance  and  disunion.  The  movement 
took  definite  form  in  Mississippi  and  resulted  in  the  call 
of  a  southern  convention  to  meet  at  Nashville  on  June  3,  1850. 
The  whigs  tried  at  first  to  block  the  movement,  and  then,  when 
this  could  not  be  accomplished,  to  force  the  radicals  to  moderate 
their  position.  Of  course  by  this  time  a  number  of  whigs  had 
become  infected  with  the  contagion  of  ultrasectionalism  and 
had  become  radicals,  while  conservative  democrats  tended  to 
draw  away  from  the  radical  leaders  of  their  party. 

Taylor's  message  in  December,  1849,  disclosed  his  plan  in 
regard  to  the  territories.  California  should  be  admitted  as  a 
state  at  once  with  its  free  constitution,  framed  while  congress 
had  delayed  giving  it  even  territorial  organization;  and  New 
Mexico  was  soon  to  follow  the  same  course;  thus  the  problem 
would  be  solved  without  the  intervention  of  congress.  Of  course 
southern  democrats  at  once  denounced  the  heresy  of  l '  approving 
the  Wilmot  proviso  in  the  constitution  of  California, ' '  and  Cal- 
houn  dubbed  it  the  "Executive  proviso."  Southern  whigs,  ex- 
cept a  few  insurgents,  approved  the  president 's  plan. 

Meanwhile  the  time  approached  for  selecting  delegates  to 
the  Nashville  convention.  The  policy  of  the  southern  whigs,  in 
state  after  state,  was  either  to  block  the  sending  of  delegates 
at  all,  or,  if  delegates  were  to  be  sent,  to  try  to  select  moderate 
men.  They  were  partially  successful  in  both  directions.  Before 
the  convention  met,  however,  the  Clay  compromise  measures 
had  been  introduced  into  congress  and  were  being  debated. 
In  spite  of  the  efforts  of  whig  congressmen,  Taylor  refused  to 
sponsor  the  compromise  plan,  and  prepared  to  come  out  even 

62  Cole,  The  whig  party  in  the  south,  143. 


VOL  vni,  NOS.  1-2        That  Aggressive  Slavocracy  53 

more  strongly  for  immediate  admission  of  California  and  New 
Mexico,  determined  to  back  the  latter  's  boundary  claims  against 
Texas  with  troops  if  necessary.  Before  he  could  succeed  in 
bringing  the  issue  between  his  plan  and  that  of  congress,  he 
died  after  a  brief  illness.  Taylor's  death  smoothed  the  way 
for  the  passage  of  the  compromise. 

The  Nashville  convention  meantime  proved  virtually  a  fiasco 
for  two  reasons:  final  action  had  to  be  delayed  until  after  the 
adjournment  of  congress,  and  in  view  of  the  strong  pronounce- 
ments against  disunion  or  radical  action  which  had  been  regis- 
tered in  many  southern  states,  the  presentation  of  36°  30'  as 
an  ultimatum  and  the  pronouncing  of  disunion  tenets  seemed 
worse  than  fruitless.  When  the  time  came  for  the  second  ses- 
sion, there  had  been  a  union  victory  in  Georgia  and  the  whigs 
again  were  unrepresented.  Fire-eating  speeches  and  discussion 
of  radical  resolutions  condemnatory  of  the  entire  compromise 
adjustment  became  the  order  of  the  day  —  with  but  very  little 
perceptible  effect  in  either  section.  The  convention  denounced 
all  president-making  conventions  and  recommended  a  southern 
congress  to  secure  concerted  action  of  the  whole  south. 

Distrust  of  the  Nashville  convention  was  felt  from  the  time 
of  the  launching  of  the  movement  not  alone  among  southern 
whigs;  some  conservative  democrats  also  distrusted  it  because 
they  feared  that  either  the  radicals  would  deliberately  make 
demands  which  the  nonslaveholding  states  could  not  sanction 
and  secession  would  be  forced,  or  the  convention  would  be  far 
from  unanimous  as  to  the  proper  course  to  be  pursued  and  a 
divided  front  would  weaken  the  south.  The  ultimatum  of  the 
Nashville  convention  —  the  extension  of  the  Missouri  compro- 
mise line  to  the  Pacific  —  was  indeed  regarded  by  the  whigs  and 
the  conservative  democrats  as  an  effort  on  the  part  of  the 
radical  democrats  to  force  secession,  because  they  wanted  no 
compromise  accepted.  During  the  debate  in  congress  on  the  com- 
promise measures  in  the  summer  and  fall  of  1850,  the  whigs  and 
the  conservative  democrats  argued  for  acceptance,  if  the  meas- 
ures should  be  passed  by  congress,  and  endeavored  to  show  that 
the  measures  really  would  put  the  south  in  as  good  a  position 
as  the  extension  of  the  Missouri  compromise  line  to  the  coast.63 


from  Hiram  Warner,  March  17,   1850,  from  John  B.   Lamar,  July  3, 
1850,  from  William  H.  Morton,  July  10,  1850,  from  John  H.  Lumpkin,  July  21, 


54  Chauncey  S.  Boucher  M- v- H- * 

Of  course  the  abolitionists  claimed  at  the  time,  and  many 
historians  since  have  maintained,  that  the  compromise  meas- 
ures of  1850  constituted  a  one-sided  bargain,  a  victory  for  the 
aggressive  slavocracy.  But  it  is  only  fair  to  state  that  many 
southerners  also  regarded  it  as  a  one-sided  arrangement,  in 
which  the  south  gained  nothing.  Another  free  state  was  added 
—  California.  In  the  provision  for  the  organization  of  Utah 
and  New  Mexico  without  the  Wilmot  proviso,  the  south  gained 
nothing  save  a  point  of  principle  which  should  never  have  been 
raised — an  unreasonably  aggressive  abolitionist  move  was  tem- 
porarily blocked.  The  Texas  boundary  settlement,  although  per- 
haps equitable  as  far  as  Texas  was  concerned,  was  considered 
as  a  loss  to  the  south  as  a  whole ;  a  large  district  which  was  slave 
territory  under  Texas  was  now  put  in  a  status  where  it  might 
be  lost  by  the  slave  interests.  The  abolition  of  the  slave  trade 
in  the  District  of  Columbia  was  a  clear  concession  to  the.  abo- 
litionists. The  new  fugitive- slave  law  was  regarded  simply  as 
a  long-delayed  recognition  of  southern  rights  under  the  consti- 
tution. 

Putting  it  still  more  forcefully,  some  southerners  said  that 
to  admit  California  as  a  state  with  its  free  constitution,  with- 
out giving  the  south  a  chance  to  share  in  the  common  heritage 
of  California  soil,  during  a  territorial  stage,  was  to  enforce  the 
Wilmot  proviso  in  an  insulting  form.  Furthermore,  the  policy  of 
the  administration  officials  in  regard  to  nonintervention  was 
pronounced  a  fraudulent  pretense ;  for,  it  was  said,  they  had  dis- 
patched agents  who  engineered  the  whole  process  of  forming 
the  state  government  and  giving  it  a  free-state  hue.  A  more 
flagrant  violation  of  the  constitution  and  the  principles  of  the 
federative  compact  had  never  disgraced  the  senate.  What  guar- 
antee was  there  that  the  south  would  not  also,  in  due  season, 
be  robbed  of  the  rest  of  the  new  territory,  by  some  trick  or 
theory  conjured  up  for  the  purpose?  The  proposition  to  pur- 
chase nearly  one-third  of  Texas,  with  the  south 's  own  money, 
to  become  ultimately  subject  to  some  newfangled  nonintervention 
or  proviso  of  free-soilism,  was  another  outrage.  The  abolition 

29,  1850,  Cobb  to  William  Hope  Hull,  July  17,  a  public  letter  (published  August  20, 
and  21,  1850),  in  Correspondence  of  Toomls,  Stephens,  and  Cobb,  186,  191,  194,  206, 
208,  196;  Boucher,  "The  secession  and  co-operation  movements  in  South  Carolina/' 
in  Washington  university  studies,  Humanistic  series,  5:84-107. 


VOL  vin,  NOS.  1-2        That  Aggressive  Slavocracy  55 

of  the  slave  trade  in  the  District  of  Columbia  was  not  contested 
unanimously  as  a  provision  undesirable  in  itself,  but  as  an 
entering  wedge  put  there  by  the  abolitionists  to  prepare  for 
total  abolition  in  the  district  in  the  near  future. 

Such  were  the  views  of  many  southerners,  summarized  by 
one  writer  as  follows:  "A  more  wretched  abortion,  a  more  mis- 
erable apology  for  a  compromise,  a  more  wanton  insult  to  the 
understanding  and  the  firmness  of  the  southern  people,  never 
before  was  offered  by  professing  friends  or  open  enemies. ' ' 
Another  said  its  title  should  have  been  "The  ignominious  sur- 
render of  the  South. ' ' 

Such  views  did  not  prevail,  however.  The  voices  of  the  con- 
servatives were  soon  raised  to  show  that  the  compromise  set- 
tlement was  fair,  just,  and  honorable,  or  at  least  as  good  as 
could  have  been  expected  under  the  circumstances,  and  that 
certainly,  if  carried  out  faithfully,  it  left  the  south  no  grievance 
serious  enough  to  cause  talk  about  secession.6* 

To  say,  as  a  recent  writer  has  said,  that  southern  leaders  pro- 
jected a  scheme  to  enlarge  the  boundaries  of  Texas  so  as  to 
extend  slavery  over  a  large  part  of  New  Mexico,  and  to  accept 
the  statement  of  the  abolitionists  at  the  time  that  the  payment 
of  ten  millions  of  dollars  to  Texas  for  the  alleged  surrender 
of  claims  to  a  part  of  New  Mexico  was  a  bribe  to  secure  votes 
necessary  to  pass  the  other  measures,  and  that  even  the  bound- 
aries conceded  to  Texas  involved  the  surrender  of  free  terri- 
tory, not  only  misrepresents  the  situation,  but  presents  what 
has  been  proved  untrue.  Furthermore,  if  the  compromise  was 
such  a  victory  for  the  south,  why  was  it  necessary  to  buy  south- 
ern votes  for  it!65 

64  See  many  letters  of  1850  and  1851,  in  Correspondence  of  Toombs,  Stephens, 
and  Coll);  Boucher,  "The  secession  and  co-operation  movements  in  South  Carolina,'7 
in  Washington  university  studies,  Humanistic  series,  5:67-138. 

es William  C.  Binkley,  "The  question  of  Texan  jurisdiction  in  New  Mexico 
under  the  United  States,  1848-1850, "  in  Southwestern  historical  quarterly,  24:1-38. 
Much  light  on  the  truth  about  Texan  boundary  lines  and  claims  is  found  in 
Binkley,  "The  expansionist  movement  in  Texas,  1836-1850, "  an  unpublished  thesis 
submitted  for  the  Ph.D.  degree  at  the  University  of  California.  The  administration 
at  Washington  sustained  the  general  claim  of  Texas  to  the  Rio  Grande  boundary 
in  1845-1846;  and  in  February,  1847,  the  United  States  secretary  of  state,  in 
response  to  a  protest  from  Governor  J.  P.  Henderson,  said  that  the  military 
government  set  up  by  General  Kearney  over  Santa  Fe  was  only  temporary  and 
acknowledged  the  claims  of  Texas  to  that  region.  (Manuscript  in  file  box  184, 


56  Chauncey  8.  Boucher  M- v- H-  **. 

To  the  south,  the  passage  of  the  compromise  of  1850  by  con- 
gress served  not  as  a  pacifier,  but  as  an  apple  of  discord  for 
at  least  a  twelvemonth  thereafter.  Throughout  most  of  the 
section  forces  rallied  on  one  side  for  submission  or  union,  and 
on  the  other  for  resistance  or  disunion ;  and  in  Georgia,  Missis- 
sippi, and  South  Carolina  there  came  a  contest  as  bitterly 
waged  as  any  the  south  had  ever  seen.  The  compromise  meas- 
ures were  thoroughly  dissected,  with  the  result  that  one  group 
pronounced  the  settlement,  as  a  whole,  fair,  while  the  other 
group  found  little  to  praise  in  any  single  item  and  pronounced 
it  as  a  whole  most  unfair  and  worthy  only  of  decisive  rejection. 

From  the  time  of  the  passage  of  the  measure  until  the  elec- 
tion of  1852,  about  as  many  and  almost  the  same  variety  of 
suggestions  were  offered  for  state  or  sectional  policy  as  had 
been  brought  forward  in  the  period  just  before  the  passage  of 
the  compromise.  Most  of  these  hinged  upon  the  policy  of  re- 
jection of  the  compromise  terms,  or  acceptance  of  them  with  the 
necessary  accompaniment  of  proper  guarantees  for  their  pres- 
ervation. It  became  a  period  of  confusion  in  the  south,  with 
readjustment  of  party  lines  and  personnel  in  regard  to  national 
policy.  A  few  whigs  still  clung  to  the  idea  of  a  continuance  of 
their  allegiance  to  the  national  party,  but  the  majority,  believ- 
ing that  the  northern  wing  of  the  party  had  become  almost  if 
not  entirely  an  abolitionist  party,  looked  toward  the  formation 
of  a  new  national  union  party,  which  should  eliminate  the  abo- 
litionists and  stand  for  the  guaranty  of  southern  rights  on  the 
basis  of  the  compromise  settlement.  Some  democrats  were 
willing  to  join  such  a  party;  others  still  regarded  the  national 
democratic  party  as  such  a  party  and  hence  wished  to  maintain 
affiliation  with  it ;  while  the  ultra  wing  of  the  democratic  party, 
joined  perhaps  by  a  few  whigs,  could  see  hope  only  in  resistance 
—  disunion. 

After  a  most  bitter  contest  waged  during  elections,  in  legis- 
latures, and  in  state  conventions,  the  conservatives  won  the  day 
and  an  aggressive  policy — secession  —  was  defeated.  A  for- 

department  of  state,  Austin,  Texas.  The  writer  is  indebted  to  Professor  C.  W.  Barns- 
dell  for  calling  his  attention  to  this  document.)  Of  course  this  does  not  validate 
historically  the  claims  of  Texas  asserted  consistently  from  1836,  but  it  does  validate 
the  Texas  claim  as  contested  between  Texas,  New  Mexico,  and  the  United  States 
after  the  Mexican  war. 


VoL  vin,  NOB.  1-2        That  Aggressive  Slavocracy  57 

midable  majority  seemed  to  agree  that  secession  at  the  time 
was  not  the  proper  step,  and  in  the  debates  it  became  clear 
that  a  very  considerable  number  refused  to  accept  the  meta- 
physics of  the  secession  doctrine  and  held  that  a  state  or  section 
possessed  only  the  inherent  right  of  revolution,  and  when  such 
a  policy  was  adopted  all  its  consequences  must  be  considered. 
Without  reading  some  of  the  newspapers  and  correspondence 
of  the  time  it  is  impossible  to  gain  a  full  impression  of  the 
bitterness  of  the  contest  in  the  south.  It  is  by  no  means 
preposterous  to  wonder  whether  the  ultra  leaders  were  not 
hated  and  distrusted  by  many  of  their  more  conservative  south- 
ern brethren  quite  as  much  as  were  the  abolitionists.  Indeed, 
in  many  an  instance,  the  abolitionists  and  the  southern  radicals 
were  put  in  the  same  category  as  undesirable  and  dangerous 
citizens.68 

"Confusion"  is  the  only  word  which  will  describe  the  political 
situation  in  the  south  from  1848  to  1860,  and  especially  in  1851 
and  1852.  Indeed  it  was  confusion  confounded  in  the  two  years 
following  the  passage  of  the  compromise  of  1850,  for  the  char- 
acter of  the  confusion  in  South  Carolina  was  different  from  that 
in  Georgia,  while  that  in  Mississippi  was  different  from  that  in 
either  Georgia  or  South  Carolina. 

In  South  Carolina  after  a  year  of  intense  excitement  and 
campaigning,  with  a  great  variety  of  complications  introduced 
to  becloud  the  situation  and  confuse  the  voter,  things  gradually 
settled  down  to  an  issue  of  immediate  secession  by  that  state 
alone  versus  cooperation  with  some  one  or  more  of  the  other 
southern  states.  When  the  question  was  finally  settled  at  the 
polls  in  October,  1851,  the  cooperationists  polled  sixty  per  cent 
of  the  votes  cast.  This  meant  nothing  except  acceptance  of 
the  compromise  settlement. 

In  Georgia  it  was  evident  fairly  early  that  the  secessionists 
were  in  a  minority,  and  the  struggle  growing  out  of  the  neces- 
sary readjustment  of  party  lines  came  to  be  one  to  determine 
control  of  the  political  policy  of  the  state  for  ensuing  years. 
The  internecine  party  warfare  continued  most  bitterly  in  Geor- 

««Calhoun  papers;  Correspondence  of  John  C.  Calhoun;  Correspondence  of 
Tooiribs,  Stephens,  and  Colt;  Boucher,  "The  secession  and  co-operation  movements 
in  South  Carolina/7  in  Washington  university  studies,  Humanistic  series,  5:67-138. 


58  Chauncey  S.  Boucher  M- v- H- R- 

gia,  with  considerable  shifting  of  personnel,  for  more  than  three 
years.67 

In  the  south  as  a  whole,  during  this  period  of  party  readjust- 
ment, the  union  democrats  and  the  southern  rights  democrats 
prepared  to  restore  harmony  and  cooperation.  The  tendency  of 
the  union  whigs  and  of  a  smaller  group  of  state-rights  whigs 
was  to  give  up  the  idea  of  longer  affiliation  with  the  national 
whig  party  and  to  join  the  democratic  party;  the  campaign  of 
1852,  especially  with  the  nomination  of  Scott,  fostered  this  ten- 
dency. The  northern  wing  of  the  whig  party  was  regarded  in 
the  south  as  lost  to  abolition,  while  there  was  still  some  hope 
in  the  democratic  party.  Party  ties,  however,  were  strong, 
and  many  were  very  reluctant  to  see  them  severed;  indeed,  to- 
ward the  middle  of  the  campaign  a  strong  effort  was  made, 
with  some  promises  of  success,  to  start  a  tremendous  reaction 
in  favor  of  Scott.  Every  effort  was  made  to  prove  him  sound 
on  the  compromise  of  1850.  When  the  returns  came  in,  however, 
the  extent  of  the  southern  whig  disaffection  was  shown  —  Scott 
carried  only  two  states,  Kentucky  and  Tennessee.  It  was  a 
vote  of  lack  of  confidence,  on  the  part  of  the  southern  whigs, 
in  Scott  and  the  northern  wing  of  the  party.  Several  sporadic 
efforts  were  made  to  rehabilitate  the  whig  party  in  the  south 
after  1852,  but  the  result  was  only  confusion.  All  that  was 
clear  was  that  though  the  whig  party  in  the  south  was  dead, 
the  section  was  not  united  under  the  single  democratic  banner 
with  a  single  policy  or  program  in  case  action  were  needed. 
' '  The  Whig  party  in  the  south  had  degenerated  into  a  mere  op- 
position party,  ready  to  act  under  one  name  or  another  in  the 
cause  l  against  the  democrats. ' ' ' 68 

The  south  as  a  whole,  at  the  time  of  the  election  of  1852, 
may  be  said  to  have  reached  something  of  an  agreement  on 
policy.  The  Georgia  platform  seemed  to  have  become  the  south- 
ern platform:  the  compromise  of  1850  was  to  be  accepted  as  a 

67  Letters  by  Toombs,  Stephens,  Cobb,  Thomas  D.  Harris,  John  H.  Lumpkin, 
James  Jackson,  John  B.  Lamar,  Orion  Stroud,  Henry  L.  Benning,  George  D. 
Phillips,  Francis  J.  Grund,  William  H.  Hull,  Thomas  C.  Howard,  John  C.  Johnson, 
James  A.  Meriwether,  Henry  S.  Foote,  Andrew  J.  Donelson,  George  W.  Jones,  John 
Slidell,  Hopkins  Holsey,  John  E.  Ward,  John  Milledge,  1851-1852,  in  Correspondence 
of  Toombs,  Stephens,  and  Cobb. 

es  Cole,  The  whig  party  in  the  south,  281 ;  Toombs  to  John  J.  Crittenden,  Decem- 
ber 15,  1852,  in  Correspondence  of  Toombs,  Stephens,  and  Cobb,  322. 


VOL  vin,  Nos.  1-2        That  Aggressive  Slavocracy  59 

final  settlement,  but  if  it  were  violated  by  the  north,  or  if  further 
aggressions  came  from  that  section,  the  south  was  determined 
to  resist.  But  this  was  more  the  appearance  of  unity  than  a 
reality,  for  there  was  sure  to  come  disagreement  over  such 
points  as  these :  what  was  a  violation  of  the  compromise  ?  what 
was  a  further  aggression  worthy  of  resistance?  and,  if  resist- 
ance were  demanded,  what  form  of  action  should  be  taken! 
These  questions  were  certain  to  revive  the  old  differences  and 
prevent  unity  of  action. 

The  Kansas-Nebraska  bill  was  the  next  development  to  dis- 
turb the  apparent  equilibrium  between  the  sections  and  to  in- 
troduce further  confusion  among  southerners.  We  do  not  as 
yet  know  all  the  forces  back  of  the  introduction  of  this  meas- 
ure, but  it  seems  to  have  been  a  political  job,  in  which  many 
northern  politicians  and  groups  were  interested,  with  various 
and  sundry  motives  and  interests  to  serve.  To  represent  it 
as  the  product  of  a  united  and  aggressive  slavocracy  is  to  ob- 
scure the  truth.  Among  the  various  factors  produced  by  con- 
ditions in  the  nation  at  large  and  in  several  localities  in  partic- 
ular—  factors  compounded  in  just  what  proportion  we  do  not 
as  yet  definitely  know — which  led  to  the  bill  to  organize  the 
Nebraska  territory  and  to  repeal  the  Missouri  compromise, 
may  be  enumerated  the  following :  the  agitation  for  one  or  more 
transcontinental  railways;  the  local  demand  in  Missouri  and 
Iowa  for  the  organization  of  the  territory;  the  demands  of  the 
prospective  settlers  and  speculators ;  the  activities  of  the  Wyan- 
dot  Indians ;  the  necessity  for  adequate  protection  for  emigrants, 
travelers,  traders,  and  mail-carriers  in  and  through  the  terri- 
tory; the  dissensions  in  the  democratic  party  in  Missouri  and 
in  New  York;  the  Benton-Atchison  feud  in  Missouri;  Douglas' 
political  position  and  aspirations;  the  question  of  slavery  in 
the  territories;  and  the  appearance  and  growth,  in  some  quar- 
ters, both  north  and  south,  of  the  idea  that  the  principle  of  the 
compromise  of  1850  had  superseded  that  of  the  compromise  of 
1820.69 

69  P.  Orman  Ray,  The  repeal  of  the  Missouri  compromise;  its  origin  and  author- 
ship (Cleveland,  1909);  Frank  H.  Hodder,  " Genesis  of  the  Kansas-Nebraska  act/' 
in  Wisconsin  historical  society,  Proceedings,  1912,  pp.  69-86;  Ray,  "The  genesis 
of  the  Kansas -Nebraska  act, "  in  American  historical  association,  Annual  report, 
1914  (Washington,  1916),  1:  259-280. 


60  Chauncey  8.  Boucher  M- v- H- R- 

Though  the  logic  of  Calhoun 's  pronouncements  upon  slavery 
in  the  territories  seems  now  to  have  demanded  the  repeal  of  the 
Missouri  compromise,  it  is  highly  doubtful  whether  more  than 
a  very  few  southern  leaders,  if  any,  other  than  a  few  in  Mis- 
souri, had  ever  seriously  considered  striving  for  such  action. 
Southerners  had  more  or  less  generally  accepted  the  Calhoun 
theory  for  future  policy,  at  the  time  of  its  pronouncement,  but 
had  little  thought,  if  any,  of  making  it  retroactive.  Though  a 
few  of  the  leaders  of  what  was  called  the  Calhoun  wing  of  the 
democratic  party  in  Missouri,  as  opposed  to  the  free-soil  wing 
led  by  Benton,  may  have  cherished  the  hope  in  1853  that  the 
Missouri  compromise  might  be  repealed  —  and  one  of  them, 
Judge  William  C.  Price,  later  boasted  that  he  had  originated 
and  sponsored  the  idea  as  early  as  1844 — there  seems  to  be 
only  such  evidence  as  may  be  drawn  from  inference  that  south- 
ern leaders  like  Calhoun,  Davis,  Breckinridge,  Toombs,  Benja- 
min, and  others  of  l  '  the  leaders  of  the  aggressive  slavery  exten- 
sion party,"  with  whom  Price  and  the  Calhoun  democrats  of 
Missouri  are  said  to  have  been  in  close  touch,  were  responsible 
for  prompting  and  pressing  for  the  repeal.  In  other  words, 
the  evidence  is  lacking  to  show  that  the  repeal  feature  was  the 
product  of  a  proslavery  extension  plot  among  southern  leaders 
at  large.  Even  in  so  far  as  it  was  the  product  of  the  local  polit- 
ical feud  in  Missouri  —  and  this  is  its  most  intimate  connection 
with  the  southern  cause  —  it  seems  to  have  been  precipitated 
by  the  aggressiveness  of  Benton  against  Atchison,  and  Atchi- 
son  sponsored  the  repeal  in  the  latter  part  of  1853  when  forced  to 
it,  to  save  his  very  political  life,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  he  had 
said  in  the  preceding  March  that  there  was  no  remedy  for  the 
law  of  1820,  since  it  could  not  be  repealed.70 

With  all  the  pressing  interests  enumerated  above,  the  ter- 
ritorial organization  of  Nebraska,  whether  with  or  without 
the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  compromise,  could  not  have  been  long- 
er delayed,  it  seems.  In  the  face  of  circumstances,  Douglas  per- 
haps became  convinced  that  he  could  best  serve  the  interests 
of  northern  Illinois,  his  party,  and  himself  by  accepting  the 
repeal  amendment,  when  it  was  urged  by  Atchison  and  actu- 
ally presented  by  Dixon  of  Kentucky;  and  other  interested 

70  Ray,  ' '  The  genesis  of  the  Kansas-Nebraska  act, ' '  in  American  historical  associa- 
tion, Annual  report,  1914,  volume  1,  pp.  259-280. 


VOL  vni,  Nos.  1-2        j/^  Aggressive  Slavocracy  61 

parties  who  were  desirous  only  of  the  immediate  organization 
of  the  territory  were  willing  to  accept  the  repeal  because  they 
believed  that  territorial  organization  might  be  delayed  without 
it  and  that  their  immediate  interests  would  not  be  adversely  af- 
fected by  it. 

Once  the  bill  embodying  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  compro- 
mise was  before  congress,  a  majority  of  the  southern  whigs  in 
congress  joined  the  southern  democrats  in  support  of  it.  The 
position  of  many  was  aptly  put  by  Senator  Clayton  of  Del- 
aware when  he  said:  "I  did  not  ask  for  it,  I  would  not  have 
proposed  it ;  and  I  may  regret  that  it  was  offered,  because  I  do 
not  believe  that  it  will  repay  us  for  the  agitation  and  irritation 
it  has  cost.  But  can  a  Senator,  whose  constituents  hold  slaves, 
be  expected  to  resist  and  refuse  what  the  North  thus  freely  of- 
fers us  as  a  measure  due  to  us?" T1  The  first  impulse  of  south- 
erners in  general  seemed  to  be  to  welcome  the  bill  because  its 
great  underlying  principles  were  nonintervention  and  popular 
sovereignty,  making  it  the  logical  development  of  the  compro- 
mise of  1850.  They  were  inclined  to  view  it  simply  as  a  long- 
delayed  act  of  justice  to  the  south,  and  felt  that  it  would  cer- 
tainly be  unbecoming  of  a  southern  congressman  to  refuse  it 
when  offered.  Even  though  it  might  not  result  in  the  actual 
extension  of  slavery,  the  point  at  issue  was  one  of  principle, 
and  a  wholesome  moral  victory  might  be  gained. 

The  passage  of  the  bill  is  generally  represented  as  a  victory 
for  the  slaveholding  interests.  But  there1  were  other  interpre- 
tations of  it  in  the  south.  Though  all  rejoiced  because  of  the 
point  of  principle  involved  in  this  partial  removal  of  the  stigma 
of  federal  legislation  directed  avowedly  against  southern  insti- 
tutions, many  cautioned  against  building  false  hopes  upon  it, 
for  the  following  reasons:  the  act  would  not  put  an  end  to 
antislavery  agitation  or  congressional  interference,  for  the  op- 
eration of  the  act  would  inevitably  bring  the  question  back  to 
the  floors  of  congress ;  the  south  would  really  gain  nothing  be- 
cause of  its  unequal  capacity  for  immediate  expansion,  as 
compared  with  that  of  the  north;  and,  furthermore,  slavery 
would  not  be  profitable  in  this  territory.  Many  objected  to  the 
bill  because  they  believed  that  it  established  the  principle  of 

7i  Quoted  in  Cole,  The  whig  party  in  the  south,  293. 


62  Chauncey  8.  Boucher  M- v- H-  * 

squatter  sovereignty  in  such  a  way  as  to  preclude  congressional 
protection  against  hostile  territorial  legislation.  Many  saw  the 
ambiguities  of  the  bill,  and  realized  that  it  was  likely  to  bring 
the  issue  between  squatter  sovereignty  and  popular  sovereignty 
—  meaning  by  the  former  the  right  of  a  people  during  the  ter- 
ritorial stage  to  exclude  slavery,  and  meaning  by  the  latter  the 
right  to  exercise  such  power  only  after  reaching  the  condition  of 
statehood,  though  not  often  was  such  a  nice  distinction  drawn 
in  defining  these  two  terms  even  if  the  difference  in  principle  was 
recognized.  This  ambiguity  was  glossed  over,  in  some  quarters, 
by  talk  of  establishment  of  congressional  nonintervention,  or  by 
a  profession  of  belief  that  the  bill  said  to  slaveholders  that  they 
could  go  into  the  territory  with  their  property  and  be  safe 
until  as  a  sovereign  state  the  people  decided  for  or  against  the 
institution.  Others  pointed  out  that  northern  democrats  were 
defending  the  act,  not  as  a  measure  of  justice  to  the  south,  but 
as  an  antislavery  measure  —  that  instead  of  opening  up  north- 
ern territory  to  southern  colonization,  it  really  opened  up 
southern  territory  to  northern  conquest. 

There  were  southerners,  it  must  be  added,  who  spoke  their 
minds  in  and  out  of  congress  against  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri 
compromise  as  an  unjustifiable  breach  of  plighted  faith  which 
could  serve  no  practical  end  for  the  south  and  would  ultimately 
cause  only  discomfort  and  loss.  The  whigs  especially  were  in- 
different to  the  fate  of  the  bill  and  could  not  share  enthusiasm 
for  an  abstract  principle  which  promised  no  practical  advan- 
tages for  the  south.  Apprehensions  of  a  renewed  agitation  of 
the  slavery  question  were  frequently  registered. 

The  Kansas-Nebraska  bill  was  a  surprise  quite  as  much  to  the 
south  as  to  the  north ;  but,  once  it  was  introduced,  it  was  natural 
that  the  south  should  easily  convince  itself  that  the  measure 
was  simply  a  measure  of  delayed  justice  involving  no  breach 
of  faith  in  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  compromise.  The  south 
had  accepted  the  compromise  of  1820  in  good  faith,  and  had 
never  thought  of  repudiating  it.  When  new  territory  was  ac- 
quired to  the  west  of  the  Louisiana  territory,  the  south  had  said 
again  and  again  that  it  was  willing  to  accept  the  principle  of 
the  Missouri  compromise  and  extend  the  line  to  the  Pacific. 
But  the  north  would  have  none  of  it,  had  put  the  Wilmot  pro- 
viso, instead  of  the  Missouri  principle,  into  the  bill  to  organize 


VoL  vin,  NOS.  1-2        That  Aggressive  Slavocracy  63 

Oregon,  and  had  further  repudiated  the  principle  in  the  long 
struggle  over  California  and  New  Mexico.  Thus  the  north 
had  abandoned  the  principle  underlying  the  settlement  of  1820 
and  stood  for  a  new  one  —  absolute  exclusion  of  the  south  from 
all  territories.  A  new  compromise  agreement  was  reached  in 
1850,  which  in  principle  rejected  both  that  of  the  compromise 
of  1820  and  the  new  principle  sponsored  by  the  north.  Thus, 
after  the  north  had  abandoned  the  principle  of  1820  and  had 
accepted  the  new  one  of  1850,  with  what  grace  could  it  now 
object  to  the  application  of  the  new  principle  to  the  present 
and  all  future  cases?  The  Kansas-Nebraska  bill  would  settle 
the  question  in  conformity  with  the  declared  will  of  the  whole 
people,  bring  " peace,  equality  and  fraternity."  This  was  the 
line  of  reasoning  pursued  by  many  northern  democrats  as  well 
as  southerners.72 

It  is  not  easy  to  discover  the  warrant  for  the  statement  made 
in  a  recent  book  that  for  ten  years  the  leaders  of  the  Calhoun 
section  of  the  democratic  party  had  been  laboring  to  get  rid 
of  the  Missouri  compromise.  Though  many  southerners  after 
1846  repudiated  the  basic  principle  underlying  the  passage  of 
the  Missouri  compromise  —  that  congress  had  power  over  slav- 
ery in  the  territories  —  very  few,  if  any,  of  these  seriously  con- 
templated asking  for  a  repeal  of  the  Missouri  compromise  as 
applied  definitely  to  the  Louisiana  purchase  territory.  Indeed 
they  would  not  have  been  led  to  deny  the  power  of  congress 
over  slavery  in  the  territories  if  the  Wilmot  proviso  had  not 
been  introduced;  and,  when  they  did  deny  the  power,  they  did 
it  with  future  settlements  in  the  new  territory  in  mind. 

It  is  evident  that  during  the  development  of  the  situation 
in  Kansas  which  Sumner  called  the  "crime  against  Kansas" 
and  to  which  many  historians  refer  as  "bleeding  Kansas,"  the 
south  had  little  accurate  information  as  to  what  was  actually 
going  on,  either  in  Kansas  or  in  administrative  circles  in  Wash- 
ington. All  sorts  of  conflicting  reports  and  rumors  were  current 
in  the  south  concerning  what  was  happening  in  Kansas,  how 
much  the  agents  of  the  administration  were  responsible  for  inter- 

72 Boucher,  "South  Carolina  and  the  south  on  the  eve  of  secession,  1852  to 
I860,"  in  Washington  university  studies,  Humanistic  series,  6:79-144;  Toombs  to 
W.  W.  Burrell,  February  3,  1854,  Stephen  A.  Douglas  to  Cobb,  April  2,  1854, 

Stephens  to   J.   W.   Duncan,   May   26,   1854,   Cobb  to   ,   April  21,    1856, 

in  Correspondence  of  Toombs,  Stephens,  and  Cobfc,  342,  343,  345,  363. 


64  Chauncey  S.  Boucher  M.V.H.R. 

fering  with  the  working  out  of  the  principle  of  popular  sover- 
eignty, and  what  was  really  the  policy  of  the  president,  first 
Pierce,  and  then  Buchanan.  Even  when  a  few  southerners 
agreed  on  what  they  believed  to  be  facts,  they  disagreed  as  to 
the  significance  of  the  facts  and  as  to  what  the  attitude  and 
policy  of  the  south  should  be. 

The  one  fact  of  which  they  were  earliest  certain  was  that 
the  abolitionists  had  refused  to  accept  the  principle  in  good 
faith  and  to  let  the  status  of  Kansas  be  settled  through  natural 
emigration  and  settlement.  Many  southerners  from  the  very 
first  feared  and  expected  treachery,  and  believed  that  every 
available  trick  would  be  resorted  to  by  their  opponents  to  make 
Kansas  a  free  state.  As  reports  both  true  and  false  came  to 
the  south  concerning  the  evidence  of  trickery  and  bad  faith, 
many  men  were  inclined  to  regard  the  outcome  and  the  manner 
of  its  accomplishment  as  the  final  test  whether  the  south  could 
ever  hope  for  justice  in  the  union.  Many  became  interested  in 
the  developments  in  Kansas  and  the  whole  territorial  question, 
not  merely  for  the  sake  of  obtaining  enough  slave  states  and 
votes  in  congress  to  control  the  government,  but  as  a  question  of 
principle.  They  believed  that  a  greater  question  of  principle  was 
involved,  the  loss  of  which  would  mean  that  the  abolitionists 
would  then  have  a  clear  road  on  which  to  march  to  the  abolition 
of  slavery  in  the  states.  The  rights  of  the  southern  states  as 
equals  in  the  union  must  be  protected  at  some  point  at  once,  or 
they  were  completely  lost.  This  was  the  stand  at  the  bridge 
which  must  be  taken  to  stop  the  onrush  and  complete  victory  of 
the  abolitionists. 

During  the  period  of  uncertainty  as  to  what  was  happening 
or  going  to  happen  in  Kansas,  many  southerners,  fearing  trick- 
ery from  the  start  and  receiving  reports  confirming  their  fears, 
could  only  fall  back  upon  the  view  that  the  proof  of  the  pudding 
would  be  found  in  the  eating.  If  the  south  were  not  given  a 
fair  chance  in  colonizing  Kansas,  if  artificial  emigration  were 
stimulated  in  the  north,  if  the  president,  whether  Pierce  or 
Buchanan,  should  instruct  or  permit  his  agents  in  Kansas  to 
discriminate  in  any  way  against  southern  interests,  if  the  south, 
after  seeing  California  hurried  into  the  union  "against  all  law 
and  all  precedent  because  she  was  a  free  state, "  should  see 


VOL  viii,  NOS.  1-2        That  Aggressive  Slavocracy  65 

"Kansas  subjected  to  the  rigors  of  the  inquisition  because  she 
had  a  chance  of  being  a  slave  state,"  if  Kansas  were  refused 
admission  either  directly  or  through  some  ingenious  circumlo- 
cution, simply  because  it  was  to  be  a  slave  state  —  then  it  was 
likely  that  the  southern  people  would  forsake  the  leadership 
of  the  conservatives  and  those  who  had  urged  acceptance  of  the 
bill,  and  that  the  radicals  —  the  secessionists — would  come  into 
power. 

Though  historians  generally  agree  to-day  that  the  proslavery 
men  in  Kansas  resorted  to  more  unfair  methods  than  did  their 
opponents,  there  were  several  points  on  which  a  fair-minded 
southerner,  not  knowing  all  the  facts,  could  base  an  interpreta- 
tion similar  to  one  or  another  of  those  just  given.  However, 
when  confronted  with  the  same  report  as  to  what  had  taken 
place,  southerners  disagreed  radically  in  forming  a  judgment. 
While  some  men  saw  only  evidences  of  betrayal  and  unjustifiable 
action  on  the  part  of  President  Buchanan  and  Governor  Walker, 
others  saw  nothing  to  criticize.  While  some  insisted  that  Kan- 
sas must  become  a  slave  state  by  whatever  means  were  neces- 
sary, fair  or  foul,  and  resorted  to  most  specious  reasoning  to 
prove  a  point,  others  were  convinced  that  a  large  majority  of 
the  people  in  Kansas  were  against  slavery,  that  the  opposition 
to  the  submission  of  the  question,  in  the  constitution,  to  a  free 
vote  and  fair  count  was  simply  the  result  of  a  fear  that  a  major- 
ity would  condemn  slavery,  and  that  "an  effort  to  get  a  free 
state  into  the  Union  over  the  will  of  a  majority  of  its  citizens 
would  never  be  submitted  to  at  the  south."73 

Of  course  at  the  time  of  the  Kansas-Nebraska  bill  the  south 
would  have  welcomed  the  addition  of  another  slave  state,  for 
defensive  purposes  in  the  national  councils.  The  "border  ruf- 
fians" of  Missouri,  however,  and  the  slaveholders  of  the  state 
generally,  were  interested  in  an  immediate  problem  of  defense 
which  concerned  them  alone,  primarily.  The  Missouri  slave- 
holders were  already  surrounded  by  free  territory  on  the  north 
and  east,  and  saw  that  if  a  free  state  were  added  on  the  west, 

73  Boucher,  " South  Carolina  and  the  south  on  the  eve  of  secession/'  in  Wash- 
ington university  studies,  Humanistic  series,  6:79-144;  letters  by  Toombs,  Stephens, 
Cobb,  Thomas  W.  Thomas,  William  H.  Hull,  Lucius  Q.  C.  Lamar,  Joseph  E. 
Brown,  and  many  others,  1856-1858,  in  Correspondence  of  Toombs,  Stephens,  and 
Cofcfc. 


66  Chauncey  S.  Boucher 


M.  v.  H.  B. 


and  the  underground  railroad  operated  on  three  sides  of  this 
slaveholding  peninsula  "jutting  up  into  a  sea  of  free-soil," 
slave  property  in  Missouri  would  be  almost  worthless.  Slave- 
holding  Missourians  frequently  asserted  at  the  time  of  their 
interest  in  the  Kansas  struggle  that  theirs  was  a  defensive 
movement  to  conserve  existing  slave  property  and  an  existing 
slave  society.  Their  first  thought  was  to  defend  what  they  al- 
ready possessed.  To  them  the  settlers  of  the  Emigrant  aid 
society  appeared  to  be  "bands  of  Hessian  Mercenaries, ' '  an 
"army  of  hirelings, "  "military  colonies  of  reckless  and  des- 
perate fanatics"  —  to  use  their  own  appellations. 

On  July  29,  1854,  the  citizens  of  Platte  county,  Missouri,  held 
a  meeting  at  Weston,  at  which  they  resolved  that  all  settlers 
sent  to  Kansas  by  free  state  aid  societies  must  be  turned  back ; 
and  they  formed  the  Platte  county  self-defensive  association, 
with  the  object  of  settling  Kansas  with  proslavery  men.  So 
it  was  in  the  rest  of  Missouri :  organized  effort  to  win  Kansas 
for  slavery  came  only  after  the  action  of  the  Emigrant  aid  so- 
ciety was  known.  From  the  testimony  of  Missourians  before 
the  congressional  investigating  committee  it  seems  that  the 
invasion  of  Kansas  for  the  purpose  of  voting  had  not  been 
thought  of  until  the  leaders  were  convinced  that  the  eastern 
emigrant  aid  societies  had  determined  to  colonize  Kansas  with 
antislavery  men  to  make  it  a  free  state.  In  the  south  popular 
sentiment  justified  the  action  of  the  Missourians  as  being  an 
act  of  self-defense  against  the  unfair  encroachments  of  the 
north.74 

When  in  the  autumn  of  1855  the  word  came  from  Missouri 
to  the  rest  of  the  south  that  unless  recruits  were  senti  at  once 
to  counterbalance  the  emigrants  sent  in  by  the  northern  socie- 
ties all  would  be  lost,  some  sporadic  efforts  were  made  in  several 
southern  states  to  enlist  volunteer  companies  to  go  to  Kansas; 
fire  must  be  fought  with  fire.  The  most  famous  expedition 
was  that  led  by  Major  Buford  of  Alabama — some  three  hun- 
dred men  recruited  from  several  states.  Though  northern  min- 
isters were  raising  funds  to  buy  Sharpens  rifles  for  northern  emi- 
grants, Buford 's  men,  out  of  respect  for  a  proclamation  by  the 
president,  were  armed  with  bibles  instead  of  rifles.  In  some 

7* Mary  J.  Klem,  "Missouri  in  the  Kansas  struggle,"  in  Mississippi  valley  his- 
torical association,  Proceedings,  9:393-413. 


VOL  vin,  NOS.  1-2        That  Aggressive  Slavocracy  67 

localities,  where  a  company  of  ten  or  twelve  volunteers  was 
raised,  composed  largely  of  mechanics,  artisans,  and  a  few 
younger  sons  or  nephews  of  planters,  the  men  were  given  din- 
ners, balls,  and  other  appropriate  demonstrations  and  were 
treated  as  military  volunteers ;  and  no  doubt  many  of  the  men 
must  have  gone  in  the  spirit  of  military  volunteers.  The  cause 
for  which  they  were  no  doubt  prepared  to  fight,  if  occasion  de- 
manded it,  was  not  simply  that  of  the  rights  of  slaveholders  in 
the  territories,  nor  two  more  votes  in  the  United  States  senate, 
but  it  was  aptly  stated  on  the  banner  which  the  Buf  ord  battalion 
carried  when  it  left  Montgomery:  on  one  side  was  inscribed 
"The  Supremacy  of  the  White  Race,"  and  on  the  other  "Kan- 
sas—  The  Outpost."  This,  in  the  minds  of  many  southerners, 
was  the  real  issue ;  Kansas  was  really  the  outpost  of  the  struggle 
for  the  supremacy  of  the  white  race,  because  if  one  point  of 
principle  after  another  were  lost,  the  abolitionists  would  ac- 
complish their  design  to  emancipate  the  slaves  throughout  the 
union ;  and,  with  no  real  solution  as  yet  suggested  for  the  negro 
problem  which  would  follow  emancipation,  southerners  believed 
that  the  supremacy  of  the  white  race,  with  all  its  civilization, 
was  truly  at  stake. 

During  the  struggle  over  Kansas  the  members  of  the  strong 
southern  opposition  were  at  one  with  the  southern  democrats 
in  desiring  to  see  Kansas  won  as  a  slave  state,  since  the  Kansas- 
Nebraska  bill  had  been  passed,  but  the  opposition  condemned 
the  use  of  violence  to  that  end,  opposed  the  adoption  of  the 
Lecompton  constitution,  and  used  the  developments  in  Kansas 
to  justify  their  saying  "I  told  you  so."  It  was  the  result  many 
had  predicted  would  follow  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  com- 
promise and  the  establishment  of  squatter  sovereignty.75 

Again  it  seems  a  pity  that  the  abolitionists  were  so  aggres- 
sive. Kansas  was  destined  to  be  a  free  state  even  in  spite 
of  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  compromise.  It  seemed  now  to  be 
demonstrated  that  organized  efforts  to  stimulate  a  great  rush 
of  people  to  Kansas,  to  become  permanent  settlers,  almost  com- 
pletely failed  both  in  the  north  and  in  the  south.  These  efforts 
have  long  been  overemphasized.  They  simply  stirred  up  a 
greater  amount  of  antagonism  and  strife  than  would  otherwise 
have  been  produced.  The  intensity  of  the  fight  for  Kansas 

75  Cole,  The  whig  party  in  the  south,  331. 


68  Chauncey  8.  Boucher  M- v- H- * 

drew  strong  spirits  to  the  territory,  among  them  many  who 
were  attracted  by  the  opportunities  to  participate  in  exciting 
adventures  and  dangerous  exploits.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
turmoil  kept  out  of  the  territory  numerous  settlers  who  wanted 
homes  instead  of  trouble.  In  the  end  the  natural  forces  of  the 
westward  movement,  normal  migration  and  settlement,  and  not 
the  artificial  forces  produced  by  the  slavery  controversy,  de- 
termined the  character  of  the  majority  of  the  settlers;  and 
these  forces,  balanced  as  they  were  at  the  time,  determined 
that  Kansas  was  to  be  a  free  state.76 

The  Kansas-Nebraska  bill  put  an  end  to  all  possibilities  of 
further  cooperation  between  northern  and  southern  whigs.  Now 
was  the  time  of  all  times  for  the  formation  of  a  southern  party 
per  se,  and  the  working  out  of  a  grand  sectional  agreement  as 
to  platform  policies  and  program  of  action.  But  this  could 
not  be.  There  were  some  democrats  and  some  whigs  who  fa- 
vored such  a  course,  but  the  radicalism  of  many  of  the  former 
repelled  those  democrats  who  still  had  faith  in  the  national 
democratic  party,  and  also  repelled  those  whigs  who  were  still 
strong  union  men  as  well  as  those  whigs  who  could  not  be 
reconciled  to  cooperation  with  democrats  under  any  circum- 
stances. The  result  was  that  the  know-nothing  or  American 
party  was  in  large  part  the  beneficiary  and  attracted  to  its 
ranks  a  great  variety  of  elements  who  had  few  common  interests 
and  could  not  be  brought  to  accept  any  very  definite  program. 
Many  there  were  who  joined  the  ranks  of  the  know-nothings 
because  they  believed  that  here  lay  the  best  possibilities  of 
serving  sectional  interests.  The  best  arguments  which  they 
could  present  to  this  end  were  simply  that  the  policy  of  the  party 
would  help  to  stifle  the  accretion  of  strength  gained  by  the 
abolitionists  from  the  foreign-born,  and  that  the  party  was  really 
a  national  one  which  would  aid  in  putting  down  the  slavery 
agitation  by  ignoring  it.  The  growth  of  the  party  in  the  south, 
however,  was  simply  proof  that  confusion  was  to  continue  in 
that  section  and  perhaps  become  more  confounded.77 

76  William  O.  Lynch,  "  Popular  sovereignty  and  the  colonization  of  Kansas  from 
1854  to  1860,"  in  Mississippi  valley  historical  association,  Proceedings,  9:380-392. 

77  Boucher,  ' '  South  Carolina  and  the  south  on  the  eve  of  secession, ' '  in  Washing- 
ton university  studies,  Humanistic  series,  6:79-144;   Cole,   The  whig  party  in  the 
south. 


VOL  vin,  NOS.  1-2        That  Aggressive  Slavocracy  69 

Even  though  every  southern  state  save  Maryland  cast  its 
electoral  votes  for  Buchanan  in  1856,  the  half  million  votes  in 
the  south  for  Fillmore  showed  that  the  opposition  to  the  demo- 
cratic party  was  not  eliminated.  Following  the  inauguration  of 
Buchanan  the  logic  of  the  situation  again  called  for  unity  in  the 
south  —  "an  undivided  South  as  the  base  of  a  great  constitu- 
tional party,  embracing  the  conservative  men  of  all  sections," 
as  Hillard  of  Alabama  put  it.78  But  again  unity  was  not  to  be 
attained.  The  national  democratic  party  ties  were  still  too 
strong  for  many,  and  as  many  others  placed  no  faith  in  this 
party. 

By  this  time  there  had  grown  up  in  the  south  what  may  best 
be  called  simply  the  "opposition"  —  a  conglomeration  of  old-line 
whigs,  know-nothings,  dissatisfied  democrats,  and  conservatives 
in  general;  their  only  common  aims  were  opposition  to  the 
democrats  in  both  local  and  national  politics,  and  a  cessation 
of  the  ' '  eternal  wrangling  and  spouting  at  abolitionism. ' ' 

The  Dred  Scott  decision,  published  two  days  after  Buchanan 
was  inaugurated,  was  an  attempt  on  the  part  of  a  majority  of 
the  supreme  court  to  allay  the  bitter  and  dangerous  sectional 
controversy  by  an  endeavor  to  settle  the  then  most  troublesome 
phase  of  that  controversy,  the  territorial  question.  But  it  came 
ten  years  too  late.  Had  the  decision  been  rendered  in  1847 
the  course  of  events  in  the  next  decade  might  have  been  con- 
siderably different  —  and  perhaps  fortunately  so  for  all  con- 
cerned. However,  coming  as  it  did  in  1857,  it  involved  too 
many  complications.  It  accepted  the  doctrine  of  Calhoun,  de- 
nying the  power  of  congress  to  prohibit  slavery  in  the  territo- 
ries ;  it  declared  unconstitutional  the  basic  principle  on  which  the 
republican  party  was  organized,  namely,  the  prevention  of  the 
extension  of  slavery  into  any  more  territories;  it  nullified  the 
doctrine  of  popular  sovereignty  as  expounded  by  Douglas  and 
northern  and  many  southern  democrats,  that  slavery  could  be 
excluded  by  the  people  of  a  territory  during  the  territorial 
stage ;  it  accepted  the  doctrine  of  a  part  of  the  southern  demo- 
crats who  maintained  that  slavery  could  be  excluded  only  at  the 
time  of  statehood ;  it  was  an  attempt  to  interpret  the  declaration 
of  independence  and  the  constitution  of  the  United  States  in 

78  Quoted  in  Cole,  The  whig  party  in  the  south,  327. 


70  Chauncey  8.  Boucher  M- v- H- B- 

the  light  of  the  existing  conditions,  claiming  for  this  interpre- 
tation that  it  must  be  the  one  intended  by  the  men  of  the  rev- 
olutionary period. 

Although  there  were  grave  misstatements  of  historical  facts 
in  the  process  by  which  the  chief  justice  reached  his  conclusion 
in  regard  to  the  territories,  it  must  be  admitted  that  to  the  mind 
of  a  southerner,  in  view  of  the  existing  circumstances,  the  de- 
cision as  to  existing  and  future  territorial  policy  could  but  seem 
eminently  equitable.  Perhaps  a  majority  of  northerners  be- 
lieved that  the  chief  justice,  in  describing  the  sentiments  of  the 
fathers  respecting  slavery,  was  doing  what  Horace  Greeley  de- 
scribed as  "saying  a  thing  and  being  conscious  while  saying  it 
that  the  thing  is  not  true."  This  suggests  a  pertinent  question 
regarding  what  is  represented  as  the  prevailing  and  accepted 
social  philosophy  of  the  south.79  Were  not  many  southerners, 
when  they  talked  and  wrote  about  the  morality  and  justice  of 
slavery  and  about  its  being  a  divinely  ordained  institution,  in  a 
position  like  that  described  by  Greeley  —  but  a  position  forced 
upon  them  by  necessity  of  circumstances  for  immediate  pro- 
tection ? 

Though  the  charge  was  made  at  the  time  by  republicans  that 
the  decision  was  the  result  of  collusion  between  members  of 
the  supreme  court  and  democratic  politicians,  including  Bu- 
chanan and  especially  southerners,  and  that  there  had  been  a 
most  elaborate  and  comprehensive  program  sponsored  by  the 
slavocracy  to  control  the  federal  judiciary,  nothing  of  the  sort 
has  ever  been  proved.  No  doubt  it  was  suggested  to  the  members 
of  the  court,  after  the  case  of  Bred  Scott  was  on  their  docket, 
that  a  general  and  all-embracing  pronouncement  from  that  au- 
gust body  might  do  much  to  calm  troubled  waters.  But  the 
decision  did  not  allay  the  controversy ;  the  court  succeeded  only 
in  lowering  its  own  standing  in  the  eyes  of  thousands  in  the 
north  and  indeed  intensified  the  bitterness  of  the  conflict.  The 
south  gained  nothing,  except  a  moral  victory  in  its  own  eyes, 
for  statements  soon  came  from  many  quarters  in  the  north 
that  the  main  part  of  the  court 's  opinion  as  obiter  dictum  was 
mere  verbiage  for  them  and  would  not  be  accepted. 

In  his  debates  with  Douglas,  Lincoln  said  that  the  Dred  Scott 

79  To  be  considered  more  at  length  by  the  writer  in  a  subsequent  publication. 


VOL  vm,  NOS.  1-2        That  Aggressive  Slavocracy  71 

decision  had  raised  the  alarming  question  whether  the  next  step 
would  not  be  a  decision  to  legalize  slavery  in  all  the  states  of 
the  union.  There  seems  to  be  no  evidence,  however,  that  any 
such  design  was  entertained  by  southerners.  They  realized  full 
well  that  such  a  step  would  be  extremely  hazardous,  for  it  would 
rob  them  of  their  last  stronghold  for  defense  of  slavery  within 
their  own  states  —  the  argument  that  slavery  in  the  states  was 
entirely  a  state  affair.  In  the  light  of  the  time,  however,  per- 
haps it  was  almost  as  natural  and  reasonable  for  Lincoln  to 
make  this  charge  as  it  was  for  the  southerner  to  charge  that 
virtually  all  the  antislavery  men  of  the  north  were  definitely 
planning  to  have  governmental  action  put  an  end  to  slavery  in 
the  slave  states.  In  the  eyes  of  each  contestant  the  logic  of  the 
situation  and  the  policies  of  the  other  seemed  to  lead  to  the 
step  charged  against  the  other,  each  taking  for  granted  that  the 
other  had  a  perverted  sense  of  justice  and  no  sense  of,  or  res- 
pect for,  constitutional  law. 

The  Freeport  doctrine,  as  set  forth  by  Douglas  in  his  debates 
with  Lincoln  in  1858  —  that  a  territory  might  by  "unfriendly 
legislation"  keep  slavery  out  in  spite  of  the  Dred  Scott  deci- 
sion—  was  not  original  with  Douglas.  In  a  speech  in  the  house 
on  December  11,  1856,  James  L.  Orr  of  South  Carolina  had 
said:  "There  are  some  democrats  who  think  the  territorial 
legislatures  have  power  to  prohibit  or  introduce  slavery.  I  do 
not.  But,  it  matters  not,  either  way,  for  in  every  slaveholding 
community  we  have  local  legislation  and  local  police  regulation 
appertaining  to  that  institution,  without  which  the  institution 
would  not  only  be  valueless,  but  a  curse  to  the  community.  The 
legislature  of  a  territory  can  vote  for  or  against  laws.  If  the 
majority  of  the  people  are  opposed  to  slavery,  all  they  have  to 
do  is  simply  to  decline  to  pass  laws  in  the  territorial  legislature 
to  protect  it.  So  the  question  whether  squatter  sovereignty  does 
or  does  not  exist  by  virtue  of  the  Kansas-Nebraska  bill  is  of 
no  importance.  It  does  by  virtue  of  their  power  to  pass  police 
regulations. ' ' 

The  shrewder  thinkers  in  the  south  were  not  surprised  by  the 
Freeport  doctrine,  for  by  this  time  they  saw  the  hopelessness 
of  the  south 's  position,  practically,  in  regard  to  the  territories. 
Although  the  constitution  and  the  Dred  Scott  decision  might 


72  Chauncey  8.  Boucher  M- v- H- R 

prevent  the  passage  of  certain  laws  to  the  injury  of  the  slave- 
holder in  the  territories,  they  could  not  compel  for  his  benefit 
the  passage  of  laws  without  which  slavery  simply  could  not  be 
maintained.  Some  southerners  therefore  suggested  demanding 
the  enactment  of  a  slave  code  by  congress  for  the  protection  of 
slavery  in  the  territories.  Although  a  congressional  slave  code 
for  the  territories  seemed  a  logical  step  following  the  Dred 
Scott  decision,  thinking  southerners  met  embarrassments  when 
they  considered  demanding  a  code.  What  more  could  the  abo- 
litionists ask  than  thus  to  be  given  the  legal  right  to  legislate 
for  the  negro!  Without  affecting  his  legal  status  as  a  slave, 
they  could  contrive  a  code  which  would  do  more  mischief  than 
anything  they  had  yet  been  able  to  do.  They  could  give  him 
the  power  to  testify;  they  could  require  certain  forms  prelimi- 
nary to  his  sale  before  a  magistrate;  they  could  invest  him 
with  certain  privileges  as  to  time,  goods,  dress,  all  perfectly 
consistent  with  his  condition  as  a  slave,  which  would  utterly 
subvert  the  master 's  authority  and  give  the  negro  the  power 
of  perpetual  and,  as  far  as  profit  was  concerned,  destructive 
annoyance.  Did  the  advocates  of  the  code  forget  that  since 
1847  most  statesmen  of  the  south  of  any  reputation,  "from 
Mr.  Calhoun  down/'  had  been  struggling  to  establish  the  doc- 
trine of  nonintervention  by  congress  in  the  territories?  Was 
the  south  in  1859  to  take  the  position  which  was  held  in  1847 
by  the  abolitionists  and  free-soilers,  and  from  which  they  had 
been  driven?  Suppose  a  slave  code  were  attainable;  would  it 
be  worth  a  pinch  of  snuff  when  it  had  to  be  executed  by  the 
courts  and  juries  of  a  territory  whose  refusal  to  pass  a  code 
had  rendered  congressional  action  necessary? 

Yet  if  the  south  did  not  adopt  this  theory  of  congressional 
legislation,  it  was  thrown  back  upon  Douglas'  popular  sover- 
eignty. Some  men  could  accept  neither  theory,  and  were  inclined 
to  sigh  for  the  good  old  days  of  the  Missouri  compromise.  Un- 
constitutional in  a  strict  legal  sense,  as  it  was  to  them,  the  Mis- 
souri compromise  principle  seemed  the  only  possible  solution 
of  the  difficulty.  Such  speculations  led  to  the  query  whether 
it  was  possible  to  find  any  constitutional  ground  upon  which 
the  south  could  stand  firmly,  whether  there  were  not  great 
equities  in  the  constitution  —  broad,  strong,  natural  rights  — 


VOL  viii,  NOS.  1-2        That  Aggressive  Slavocracy  73 

which  southern  statesmen  could  maintain,  whether  a  policy  could 
be  found  which  would  be  free  from  that  idle  and  mischievous 
spirit  of  legal  metaphysics  which  had  so  long  passed  for  pro- 
found political  thought.80 

Others  were  not  so  despondent  and  denied  the  necessity  of 
a  congressional  code  because,  they  said,  the  general  laws  were 
already  sufficient  to  protect  southern  property  in  the  territories 
and  to  make  impossible  "unfriendly  legislation."  Still  others 
declared  that  a  just  construction  of  nonintervention  meant  no 
more  than  that  congress  should  neither  establish  nor  abolish 
slavery  in  the  territories,  but  did  not  preclude  congressional 
interference  to  counteract  unfriendly  territorial  legislation. 
This  interference  might  not  be  necessary,  but  it  should  be  exer- 
cised whenever  the  territorial  legislature  attempted  to  discrimi- 
nate against  slave  property  by  an  omission  to  pass  laws  for  its 
protection,  or  by  hostile  legislation.  Nonintervention,  it  was 
maintained,  was  to  be  denounced  as  a  fallacy  if  it  denied  the 
power  of  congress  to  protect  property.  There  was  a  vast  dif- 
ference between  the  power  to  create  o.r  destroy  by  law  and  the 
power  to  protect  rights  legally  existing  under  a  fundamental 
law.  In  fact,  these  men  declared  that  it  was  the  solemn  duty 
of  congress  to  see  that  nothing  was  done,  either  by  its  own  acts 
or  by  the  acts  of  its  agent  —  the  territorial  legislature,  to  which 
it  might  grant  local  legislative  powers  —  that  would  destroy 
any  right  to  which  any  citizen  was  entitled  under  the  consti- 
tution.81 

During  1858  there  was  again  a  movement  in  the  south  among 
the  opposition  elements  to  form  a  conservative,  national,  union 
party.  They  belittled  the  strength  of  the  aggressive  antislavery 
men  in  the  north,  and  hoped  to  rally  the  conservatives  in  both 
sections  in  a  conspiracy  of  silence,  content  to  let  slavery  rest 
in  status  quo.  The  John  Brown  affair  at  Harper's  Ferry,  how- 
ever, in  October  of  1859,  did  much  to  prove  such  a  movement 
fruitless  and  to  revive  the  sectional  feeling  in  a  more  intensified 
form. 

The  whole  story  of  the  ante-bellum  period  is  filled  with  most 

so  Hammond  from  J.  J.  Seibels,  July  30,  1859,  from  W.  H.  Trescott,  August  9, 
1859,  from  J.  L.  Orr,  September  17,  1859,  Hammond  papers. 

si  Boucher,  ' l  South  Carolina  and  the  south  on  the  eve  of  secession,  ' '  in  Washing- 
ton university  studies,  Humanistic  series,  6:126-127. 


74  Chauncey  S.  Boucher  M- v- H-  »• 

unfortunate  developments.  Just  when  the  conservatives  in  the 
south  were  devoting  their  utmost  endeavors  to  guard  against 
rash  action  and  the  rule  of  passion,  and  to  insure  calm  judgment, 
the  Harper's  Ferry  insurrection  gave  another  forceful  argu- 
ment to  the  radical  hotspurs.  Many  southerners  who  had  not 
been  inclined  to  pay  much  attention  to  the  fire-eaters  were  now 
soon  ready  to  believe  that  the  people  of  the  north  would  re- 
joice to  see  the  whole  south  wrapped  in  the  flames  of  servile 
insurrection.  One  report  of  the  affair  brought  it  straight  home : 
among  the  maps  found  in  the  conspirator's  possession  were 
some  of  southern  states  marked  with  circles  and  crosses,  which 
seemed  to  show  that  the  lives  and  property  of  these  communities 
had  been  doomed  by  the  plotters.  Henceforth  a  more  careful 
watch  must  be  maintained  to  detect  agents  tampering  with  the 
slaves.82 

Although  John  Brown  went  his  solitary  way  in  Kansas,  and 
did  not  have  the  support  or  countenance  of  the  majority  of  the 
free-state  men  there,  how  could  the  south  know  or  believe  this? 
The  same  may  be  said  of  his  operations  in  Virginia.  Probably 
less  than  a  hundred  people  knew  beforehand  anything  about  the 
enterprise  at  Harper's  Ferry,  and  less  than  a  dozen  of  these 
rendered  aid  and  encouragement.  But  the  affair,  because  it 
came  on  the  eve  of  the  final  election  before  the  war,  sharpened 
the  issue  and  had  considerable  influence.  It  played  into  the 
hands  of  extremists  in  both  sections.  On  one  side,  Brown  was 
soon  made  a  martyr  and  a  hero;  on  the  other,  his  acts  were 
accepted  as  a  demonstration  of  northern  malignity  and  hatred, 
the  fitting  expression  of  which  was  seen  in  the  incitement  of 
slaves  to  massacre  their  masters.  John  Brown  became  to  south- 
erners the  personification  of  northern  opposition.  We  know  to- 
day that  he  was  an  extremist,  perhaps,  as  some  have  said,  unbal- 
anced mentally,  certainly  not  possessed  of  robust  common  sense. 
But  by  the  time  of  his  rise  to  notoriety,  many  in  the  south  could 
no  longer  distinguish  between  John  Brown  and  Abraham  Lincoln, 
even  though  we  know  that  they  were  as  far  apart  as  the  poles. 
Certain  it  is  that  a  man  who  is  said  to  have  admired  Nat  Turner, 
the  leader  of  the  servile  insurrection  in  Virginia,  as  much  as 
he  did  George  Washington,  was  a  most  dangerous  citizen  at 

82  Boucher,  ' '  South  Carolina  and  the  south  on  the  eve  of  secession, ' '  in  Washington 
v/niversity  studies,  Humanistic  series,  6:   130. 


VOL  vin,  NOS.  1-2        That  Aggressive  Slavocracy  75 

such  a  time.  Abolitionists  of  every  class  had  said  much  about 
war  and  about  servile  insurrection.  By  the  later  eighteen-fif  ties 
the  south  realized  what  was  in  the  mind  of  John  Brown;  he 
believed  that  so  high  was  the  tension  on  the  slavery  question 
throughout  the  country  that  revolution,  if  inaugurated  at  any 
point,  would  sweep  the  land  and  liberate  the  slaves ;  he  believed 
that  he  was  himself  the  divinely  chosen  agent  to  let  loose  the 
forces  of  freedom.  How  could  the  south  help  but  conclude  that 
if  war  was  to  be  forced,  with  the  preliminary  and  accompanying 
horrors  of  servile  insurrection  and  race  war,  the  south  had 
better  try  to  prevent  it  by  seceding,  or  at  least  have  war  come 
without  these  preliminary  and  accompanying  horrors? 

It  requires  but  little  imagination  to  picture  the  reaction  in 
the  south  when  the  news  came  that  when  Emerson  referred  to 
John  Brown  as  "that  new  saint  .  .  .  who  .  .  .  will 
make  the  gallows  glorious  like  the  cross,"  he  was  cheered  with 
enthusiasm  by  an  immense  audience  in  Boston ;  and  there  were 
many  other  testimonials  of  the  temper  of  the  north. 

During  1859  and  1860  the  coming  presidential  election  pre- 
sented to  the  south  grave  questions  of  policy:  what  part  should 
the  section  take  in  that  election?  just  what  statement  of  prin- 
ciple and  what  candidate  should  it  sponsor?  in  case  of  certain 
election  results  what  course  should  be  pursued?  Down  to  the 
very  eve  of  the  election  there  was  no  general  agreement  on  an 
answer  to  any  of  these  questions.  The  nearest  there  was  to 
a  general  consensus  of  opinion  seemed  to  be  simply  that  a  black 
republican  victory  would  mean  an  end  of  all  probability  of  safe- 
ty for  the  south  in  the  union,  unless  the  section  could  really  be 
aroused  to  positive  united  action  as  never  before  and  could 
present  as  an  ultimatum  a  demand  for  constitutional  amend- 
ments which  would  without  question  guarantee  to  the  southern 
states  safety  within  their  own  boundaries. 

When  the  South  Carolina  legislature  in  December,  1859,  could 
not  agree  on  a  policy  for  the  state  in  the  immediate  future,  the 
members,  in  the  face  of  this  embarrassment,  agreed  on  a  com- 
promise declaration  that  the  southern  states  should  appoint 
delegates  at  once  to  arrange  a  plan  of  united  action.  In  a  short 
time,  however,  it  was  seen  that  the  attempt  to  promote  a  south- 
ern congress  was  a  failure,  for  it  was  soon  demonstrated  by 


76  Chauncey  S.  Boucher  M.  v.  H.  B. 

action  in  other  states  that  there  was  no  likelihood  that  more 
than  one  or  two  states  could  be  interested  in  the  congress,  so 
absorbed  were  they  all  in  the  game  of  president-making.  Even 
in  the  case  of  Virginia,  where  a  special  messenger  was  sent 
to  express  sympathy  with  the  state  in  the  John  Brown  affair  and 
to  invite  it  to  lead  in  securing  a  southern  conference,  the  attempt 
failed.83 

Clearly  there  was  only  one  political  party  —  the  democratic 
party  —  with  which  the  south  could  possibly  cooperate,  but  there 
was  serious  disagreement  as  to  whether  the  south  should  be 
represented  even  in  that  party's  nominating  convention.  After 
a  spirited  contest  —  especially  so  in  South  Carolina  —  it  was 
agreed  in  all  the  states  to  send  representatives.  Here,  however, 
agreement  ended.  As  to  the  platform  statement  to  be  demanded 
on  the  territorial  question  there  was  serious  disagreement :  some 
were  for  dropping  the  whole  question,  or  for  accepting  any 
statement  upon  it,  because  it  was  a  mere  abstraction;  others 
were  willing  to  accept  popular  sovereignty,  because  that  prin- 
ciple would  give  the  south  the  opportunity  to  carry  slavery 
wherever  climate,  soil,  methods  of  production,  and  population 
would  permit ;  others,  including  a  majority  of  the  southern  dele- 
gates at  the  Charleston  convention,  insisted  upon  noninterven- 
tion so  interpreted  as  to  preclude  hostile  legislation  by  a  terri- 
torial legislature  and  to  allow  for  prospective  legislation  by  con- 
gress if  necessary.  As  to  a  safe  candidate,  worthy  of  southern 
support,  there  was  again  serious  disagreement.  To  many,  Doug- 
las was  entirely  satisfactory,  because  they  regarded  him  as  a 
noble  and  gallant  man,  offering  to  the  south  all  that  the  section 
could  in  reason  expect.  Others,  however,  regarded  him  as  a 
black-hearted  villain  of  the  deepest  dye,  whose  theories  were 
based  not  on  sound  principles  but  on  insidious  and  dangerous 
sophistries. 

When  disagreement  over  the  platform  was  brought  to  a  head 
in  the  national  democratic  convention  at  Charleston,  and  the 
delegations  of  eight  southern  states  seceded,  there  seemed  to  be 
the  prospect  of  united  southern  action.  Once  more,  however,  the 
agreement  was  only  on  the  negative  policy  of  withdrawing ;  what 
positive  policy  should  follow  was  not  easily  determined.  The 

ss  Boucher,  " South  Carolina  and  the  south  on  the  eve  of  secession,"  in  Wash- 
ington university  studies,  Humanistic  series,  6:134. 


VOL  vni,  NOS.  1-2        That  Aggressive  Slavocracy  77 

immediate  prospect  for  the  south  did  not  seem  to  be  unity  of 
action,  for  evidence  was  painfully  clear  in  nearly  every  state 
that  there  was  to  be  a  scramble  for  the  spoils  of  office  available 
either  in  the  Eichmond  or  the  Baltimore  convention  —  the  con- 
vention of  the  seceders  and  the  adjourned  session  of  what  was 
left  of  the  regular  convention.  By  no  means  was  it  clear  that 
the  disruption  of  the  Charleston  convention  would  bring  about 
a  dissolution  of  the  union. 

Many  prominent  southerners,  including  nineteen  members  of 
congress,  thought  that  a  grave  mistake  had  been  made  by  the 
seceders,  and  were  for  going  back  into  the  regular  convention 
at  Baltimore.  Others  were  for  sending  delegates  to  the  con- 
vention called  by  the  seceders  to  meet  at  Richmond,  hoping 
that  this  convention  would  be  able  to  force  the  Baltimore  con- 
vention to  adopt  the  territorial  principle  demanded  by  the 
seceders,  and  thus  unite  the  democratic  party  again,  north 
and  south.  Still  others,  a  minority  in  the  south,  led  by  the  fire- 
eating  and  "  chivalry  "  radicals,  wanted  the  Richmond  convention 
to  take  independent  action  and  the  southern  democrats  to  re- 
main separate  and  independent  from  any  alliances  whatsoever 
with  the  north,  hoping  that  secession  would  be  the  ultimate  result 
of  such  action,  following  the  election.  This  group  ultimately 
had  their  way  in  regard  to  splitting  the  democratic  party,  and 
two  democratic  candidates,  representing  two  distinct  parties, 
were  placed  in  nomination.  As  August  came,  and  it  was  seen 
that  the  democratic  party  was  irreparably  split,  the  inevitable 
result  of  the  election  became  evident  —  Lincoln,  the  black  repub- 
lican candidate,  would  be  the  next  president. 

When  election  time  came  the  conservative  vote  in  the  south 
was  surprisingly  large.  Even  though  a  vote  for  Bell,  the  candi- 
date of  still  another  party,  the  constitutional  union  party,  indi- 
cated a  willingness  to  play  the  role  of  the  ostrich,  his  popular 
vote  was  surprisingly  near  that  for  Breckinridge.  In  the  fifteen 
slave  states  the  electoral  vote  was  9  for  Douglas,  72  for  Breck- 
inridge, 39  for  Bell.  But  this  does  not  at  all  reflect  the  charac- 
ter of  the  popular  vote.  Lincoln  polled  26,430,  Douglas  163,525, 
Bell  515,973,  and  Breckinridge  571,051.  If  we  accept  the  vote 
for  Breckinridge  as  indicating  the  strength  of  those  who  were 
united  on  an  aggressive  policy,  even  to  the  point  of  secession, 
they  are  found  to  have  constituted  only  about  45  per  cent  of  the 


78  Chauncey  8.  Boucher  M.V.H.R. 

people  of  the  south.  In  the  eleven  states  which  ultimately  con- 
stituted the  confederacy,  the  popular  vote  was :  Lincoln,  1,929 ; 
Douglas,  72,084  —  8.4  per  cent;  Breckinridge,  436,772  —  51  per 
cent ;  Bell,  345,919—40  per  cent. 

Secession  was  not  a  clear-cut  issue  in  the  election  in  the  south. 
Indeed,  in  the  remaining  weeks  of  the  year  following  the  elec- 
tion, it  was  not  at  all  clear  that  there  would  be  a  concerted  move 
for  secession  in  a  majority  of  even  the  states  of  the  lower  south. 
There  was  abundant  evidence  of  a  strong  union  feeling,  which 
some  said  was  stronger  than  at  any  time  in  a  decade,  and  it  was 
apparently  not  at  all  unlikely  that  resistance  would  be  delayed 
and  offers  of  concession  or  compromise  be  seriously  considered. 
In  Sou tli  Carolina  alone  there  was  a  clear-cut  determination 
to  act  —  to  secede;  but  whether  its  action  would  strengthen 
and  rally  support  for,  or  completely  unnerve  and  deplete  the 
ranks  of,  the  resistance  elements  in  the  rest  of  the  south,  few 
in  South  Carolina  pretended  to  know.  Nevertheless,  the  people 
of  that  state  went  wild  with  excitement ;  liberty  poles  were  erect- 
ed, volunteer  companies  drilled,  and  the  palmetto  flag  was 
greeted  with  cheers  for  the  new  republic.  Men  who,  when  the 
legislature  was  convened  at  election  time,  had  urged  caution, 
unless  indications  were  clear  that  the  other  southern  states  were 
ready  to  go  out  and  only  wanted  a  leader,  now  said  that  South 
Carolina  must  secede  at  once.  The  state  convention,  on  Decem- 
ber 20,  when  it  passed  the  ordinance  of  secession,  merely  gave 
official  expression  to  what  had  been  determined  by  the  people 
a  month  before.  Thoroughly  wearied  by  the  long  period  of 
threatening  and  blustering,  with  nerves  kept  a-tingle  for  years 
by  the  continual  wrangling  with  the  north  and  among  themselves, 
the  people  of  this  state  at  last  had  reached  the  point  where 
something,  anything,  to  relieve  the  tension  was  welcome.  Though 
by  no  means  unanimously  convinced  that  they  were  pursuing 
the  course  which  was  certain  to  bring  a  decided  change  for  the 
better,  from  all  standpoints,  the  people  rejoiced  in  definite  ac- 
tion. Few  pretended  to  see  clearly  what  the  results  would  be. 

As  some  people  had  predicted,  the  action  of  South  Carolina 
proved  all  that  was  needed  to  give  the  advantage  to  the  resist- 
ance men  in  six  of  the  other  states  which  soon  followed  the 
example  set  by  the  palmetto  state.  In  each  of  these  states, 


Vol.  vni,  NOS.  1-2        That  Aggressive  Slavocracy  79 

once  the  decision  was  made,  the  union  men  declared  that  they 
would  abide  by  it  and  act  accordingly.  For  a  few  weeks,  while 
"the  confederate  states  of  America "  were  being  organized  at 
Montgomery,  while  the  constitution  was  being  framed  and  officers 
were  being  selected,  there  was  really  for  the  first  time  unity 
of  purpose  and  action.  But  this  period  proved  all  too  brief 
for  the  sake  of  the  cause  which  was  destined  in  a  few  years  to 
become  "the  lost  cause. "  Within  a  short  time  after  the  new 
government  was  launched  there  came  disagreements,  both  per- 
sonal and  on  policy;  these  ripened  into  bitter  personal  and 
factional  feuds,  and  all  too  soon  the  body  politic  which  should 
have  been  a  perfect  unit,  in  order  to  have  any  hope  of  success, 
was  torn  and  distracted  by  bickerings  and  jealousies  and  honest 
disagreements  on  fundamental  issues  of  policy.84 

CHAUNCEY  S.  BOUCHEB 
UNIVEBSITY  OF  TEXAS 

AUSTIN 

8*  Letters  by  Toombs,  Stephens,  Cobb,  Joseph  E.  Brown,  and  others,  1859-1860, 
in  Correspondence  of  Toombs,  Stephens,  and  Cobb;  Alexander  H.  Stephens  to 
Eobert  Collins  and  others,  May  9,  1860,  in  Stephens,  Constitutional  view  of  the 
war  between  the  states  (Philadelphia,  1870),  2:677-684. 


